Glimmer and CLove: The Final Countdown
by UnofficiallyGlimmer
Summary: My favorite book series EVER is The Hunger Games, and Glimmer and Clove are my two favorite characters, so I decided to write a story about them! Please review!
1. Pain

Glimmer and Clove: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

_Chapter 1: Pain_

Glimmer

Pain. That's the last thing I remember before I blacked out. Pain in my hands and pain in my arms. Pain in my feet, legs, stomach, back, fingers, toes, head. Pain EVERWHERE. Pain as the Tracker Jackers repeatedly stung me. Pain as my skin swelled into huge lumps where the stingers were. Pain as the poison shot through my battered body. Pain as my fingers were broken by that horrible girl from District 12. Pain as she wrenched my beautifully crafted bow out of my grip, and pain as she forced me onto my back and pulled my precious arrows out from under me. Pain as I watched, through half-closed eyes, and she stumbled away with them clutched to her chest.

_Clove_

I watched in horror as a stone the size of a loaf of bread collided with my head. I let out a scream so loud it sent shivers up my spine. Blinded in agony, I fell to the ground, still screaming. Someone, I don't know who, clamped their hand over my mouth to try to shut me up. Stupid idiot. I bit down on their hand so hard I felt a stream of blood pour into my mouth. Dirty, metallic blood. Gah-ross! I spit it out in disgust. How the hell does President Snow like this stuff? I had stopped screaming, but my forehead still felt like it was splitting open. I lifted my hand to feel my head. I howled in pain again as I felt my forehead. There was a dent in my skull. I looked over at Katniss, who was staring stupidly at me. The cuts I made around her mouth were still bleeding.

"Rot in hell," I spat at her. She looked away. I turned my head towards that oaf from District 11 and showed him my middle finger. I laid back down as a wave of nausea rolled through me. Everything around me faded as I thought, _Crap. I'm going to die._


	2. In The Hospital

_Chapter 2: In the Hospital_

**Glimmer**

I was floating. Floating over my beloved District 1, which made my heart ache with homesickness. Floating over all of my happy memories, which made my heart melt with happiness. And finally, floating over the horrid, bloody arena, where I had brutally died. Or…hadn't I?

Bright lights were streaming into my eyes. Where was I? I blinked and looked around. It looked like I was in…a hospital. But that would mean that I'm alive! But how could I be alive? There's no way I could've survived all those Tracker Jacker stings. Or were the Tracker Jackers just hallucinations? Was I going crazy? All of these questions swirled around in my head as an extremely attractive doctor strode in. He was young, probably in his mid twenties. He had gorgeous dirty-blond hair and to-die-for brown eyes.

"Hello, Glimmer," he said in an amazing British accent. "I'm Dr. Samuel. How are you feeling?"

"W-what?" I spluttered. "Where am I? How am I alive?" Questions tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Dr. Samuel sat on the edge of my bed. "You're in a Capitol hovercraft," he explained. "After Miss Everdeen took you your weapons, we lifted you up in our hovercraft claw. You were barely conscious, but it's possible that you experienced a flying sensation."

Huh. So that explained the floating.

Dr. Samuel continued, "When you landed in this hovercraft, you immediately went into a coma. You've been unconscious for about three days."

"But how did I survive all those Tracker Jacker stings?" I asked, still confused.

"You were very lucky. We arrived just in time to treat you. If you were alone just a few minutes longer, you would be dead for sure. We had to immediately take out all the stingers. You were stung fifty-three times! We thought you might want to keep the stingers." Dr. Samuel gestured to my side table. Sure enough, there was a big pile of unnaturally large black metal stingers. I shuddered.

"So," I said. "Did any of the other tributes survive?"

"Of course!" a familiar voice said.

I squealed in delight. "Marvel!" I cried. My fellow tribute, also my gorgeous boyfriend Marvel entered the room. I drank in the features of his face: his ice blue eyes, his wind-swept brown hair with the long brown bangs that always fell into his eyes, and finally, the full red lips that I loved to kiss.

Marvel gave me a quick peck on the cheek. Dr. Samuel cleared his throat and mumbled, "I'll send in a nurse later." He left, leaving me alone with Marvel.

"These are for you," Marvel said, handing me a bouquet of beautiful yellow daffodils, my favorite flower.

"They're beautiful! But how did you get these? We're in the middle of the sky!"

"Never underestimate the Capitol." Marvel smiled, flashing his snow-white teeth. He gave me a hug, being careful of all the tubes and machines hooked up to me.

"I can't believe you're here! I thought I'd lost you!" I whispered in Marvel's ear.

It was true. At the reaping, Marvel and I had clung to each other, even though the chances of our names being called were slim. Almost everyone had a good job in District One and many had money left over for other luxuries. Because of this, very few people were signed up for tesserae.

When I was called, I didn't faint or burst into tears, or any of the ridiculous things girls do to show their emotions. I simply walked bravely up to the stage with my head held high, and stood next to Pinocchio Travis, our escort.. I was going to win the Games, win them so Marvel and I could be together again. I was so convinced that when they called Marvel's name, I thought it was a joke. I stared at Pinocchio, waiting for him to say there's been a mistake and call someone else's name. But she didn't.

A single tear had escaped my eye as once again called Marvel's name.

He strode up to the stage and gave me a small smile. I had smiled weakly back at him, wishing I could just drop dead right there.

On the train, it was wonderful. Marvel and I had been inseparable the entire time, taking midnight strolls though the empty dining cars, holding hands and watching movies.

Then, in the arena, Marvel had killed the little girl from District Eleven, and Fat-I mean Katniss, shot him in the neck with an arrow. I spent the rest of the Games thinking he was dead.

"Marvel," I said. "How did you get here? You were shot in the neck!"

Marvel pulled down his shirt collar, revealing his neck and a long line of stitches where the tip of the arrow had penetrated his skin.

He said, "After I got shot, I went into the forest. I knew I had to get out of there, quick. So I dug the tracker out of my arm, and when the cannon boomed, I laid on the ground pretending to be dead. The Capitol picked me up, and here I am, good as new!"

Dr. Samuel chose that moment to poke his head into the room and tell Marvel to leave. Marvel kissed me once before he left me alone to ponder all the things I'd learned.

_Clove_

_ Am I dead?_ It was the first thing I thought when I opened my eyes. Everything was so fuzzy. And…white…so white. I finally focused my eyes. I was laying in a white bed, in a room with white walls.

I called over the first person I saw: a thin woman with mousy brown hair.

"Where the hell am I?" I demanded.

The woman looked at me and replied, "You're in the hospital wing of the Capitol hovercraft."

Well, shit. A friggin' hospital.


	3. Crazy Clove

Chapter Three: Crazy Clove

_Clove_

A hospital. I felt my head. There was a bumpy bandage wrapped around it. I winced. I had a horrible headache. I bit my lip hard, and, once again, blood entered my mouth. Ugh. More blood.

The woman who had helped me before came over to my bed and told me what happened.

I had a concussion, obviously, and a dented skull. I was pretty much dead when the hovercraft picked me up, but my heart was just barely beating. Apparently it had stopped beating for a split second, which caused my cannon to fire. They'd done immediate surgery when I got here.

"Clove?" a shaky voice said next to me. I gasped.

Lying in the bed next to mine was a creature, so horribly ugly that I could barely look at it.

"Cato?" I cried in disbelief.

Cato's legs were chewed to little stumps, probably making him the size of a second grader. He was wearing chunky headgear like a crown, and his head jutted forward, making him look like a turtle. I also noticed he had a hunchback. What had happened to my beautiful, intimidating boyfriend?

Oh, yeah. Me and Cato used to be a couple. We were always trying to compete with each other. Then, at the reaping, Cato started the ultimate competition by volunteering for the Games. So I volunteered too, thinking what the hell, he'd probably die anyway.

"Clove! I misthed you tho much!" Cato said with a lisp.

"Uh, ya, me too, Cato," I said, rolling my eyes.

He beckoned for me to come closer. I gave him a quick kiss. He smelled weird, like rotting cheese.

We talked for a while. Each explain how we got there.

"May I?" I asked, pointing to the IV that shot morphling up his arm. He nodded. I jammed the needle into one of my veins. A sound of pleasure escaped my mouth. It had been so long…

During my training, I had met a mentor from District 7 named Johanna. She wasn't much older than me, and she had had a secret stash of morphling.

Each day Johanna and I found an empty room and overdoes on that wonderful stuff. It was awesome. Well, until some bastard Avoxes discovered us and confiscated the morphling. When I arrived here, the doctors had been very careful not to give me any for the pain. I HATE these stupid doctors!

I heard footsteps. I ripped the needle out of my arm and jumped back in bed.

A doctor walked in. Whoa! Hot stuff there!

Dr. Hottie looked at me, saw the disconnected tubes around me and snapped, "Don't leave your bed!"

I fluttered my eyelashes. "Of courrrse…" I purred.

Dr. Hottie rolled his eyes. "Don't even think about it," he said. "I'm engaged already." He held out his left hand, where a gold engagement ring glittered on his fourth finger. I wondered who was lucky enough to have snagged this Australian beauty. Probably some gorgeous Capitol girl. Lucky bitch.

"So who's still alive in the Games?" I asked.

"The games are over." Cato said.

"Over? Well then, who was the victor?" God, these people were not telling me ANYTHING!

Dr. Hottie's mouth set itself into a straight line. "There were two victors," he said in a strained voice.

"What the hell?" I cried. "TWO fricken victors? How is that even possible?"

"They broke the rules." The doctor spat out. "Thought they could get away with that, acting like stupid star-crossed lovers!"

"Wait. One. Minute. Are you saying that those butthole bastards from District 12 won The Games?" I yelled. "How the hell did that happen?"

Dr. Hottie grimaced. "Like I said, they broke the rules. If you ask me, their whole love strategy was so obvious from the start. Faker than District 13 being extinct."

At this, Cato and I gasped. "What…about Disthwict Thirteen?" Cato lisped.

The doctor's face turned bright red. "Uhh…I mean, I was uhhh..talking about all the refugees from Thirteen living in the other districts. So, uhh..it's not technically extinct." He stammered. He checked the monitors hooked up to us one more time and hurriedly left the room.

I turned to Cato. "Dr. Hottie has left the building!"

Cato laughed. "Isth's good to have you back, Clove!"

Suddenly Dr. Hottie poked his head through the doorway. "Oh, Clove," he said smirking. "It seems as though you got my name wrong. It's Dr. Samuel, NOT Dr. Hottie."

My cheeks burned. "Uh, yeah, I knew that, duh!" I stuttered as he left the room.

Cato, being his annoying competitive self, snickered. "Well, now we know the persthon who holdsth the record for being embarasthed the mosth!"

I just noticed how annoying that lisp was. "God, Cato, just stop TALKING!" I shouted, throwing a magazine at his head.

"Clove, what the hell-" he tried to say, but the drugs pulled him under. Idiot. A thin white line of drool started trickling down his chin. Gah-ross! Once I made sure he was out cold, I checked the door, then punched the glass door of a abinet, and plled out something you would use to scalp someone with. Perfect.

I walked over to Cato's bed. The trickle of saliva had now turned to a steady stream from the corner of his mouth all the way down to his neck. Instead of snoring, he was making a sound that was a cross between a snort, a gurgle, and a fart. Speaking of farts, a farting noise escaped Cato's butt and the smell of rotting cheese grew stronger. I heard a hissing sound, and…EW. A big wet spot was pooling around Cato's butt area. I gagged. There was no way I was going to let THIS disaster live!

As I raised my weapon to stab him, ANOTHER farting sound came out from Cato's nose and he sat up, startled. His eyes widened when he saw the tool in my hand.

"DR. STHAMUEL!" he screamed.

Dr. Samuel rushed in. He ran to me and snatched the tool out of my hands.

Two big muscular guys came in next and grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me down the hall to a door marked: MENTALLY DISORIENTED. They shoved me through the doorway and closed the door.

I was in another huge white room with five small cots lined up against each wall, and a small steel toilet in the middle of the room. Five other people stared at me. One wrinkled old man was squatting in a corner of the room, with a constipated look on his face. His face melted into a look of pleasure as a watery explosion of brown cascaded from his behind onto the floor. He looked around the room, smiling and pointing happily at what he'd just done. I looked away in disgust I tried to open the door. As I expected, it was locked.

"SHIT!" I screamed, kicking it hard.


	4. Realization

Chapter Four

_Glimmer_

I was awoken by a commotion in the hallway outside my room. Marvel, who had been sitting next to my bed while I slept, peeked into the hallway.

"It's just that weird girl from District Two," he said, sitting back down.

"Really?" I sat up and looked out of the tiny window into the hallway. Sure enough, Clove, the girl from District Two, was being dragged down the hall by two big security guards. She was screaming and thrashing about. I wonder what she did.

I didn't think Clove was weird. During our days of training, I had watched her throw all different types of knives. She was good. REALLY good. When she showed off to the Gamemakers, she got a nine. I only got a seven! We'd been allies during the Games, but since we were with other tributes, I actually didn't get to talk to her that much. I wasn't too upset about that, though-she had a problem with her temper. During training, she'd punched a trainer just because he'd accidentally given her a dull knife instead of a sharp one.

I laid back down on my bed. "How do you think she got here?" I asked Marvel.

Marvel snickered. "They thought she was dead when they picked her up. She pretty much was. I guess they fixed her up. Wanna know how she died?"

"How?"

Marvel's smile widened. "She got hit in the head with a ROCK!"

I busted our laughing. "A rock?" I choked out. "She lost to a _rock? _That's pathetic!"

_Clove_

_ Get me out of this place. Get me out of this fucking place._ I prayed. I sighed. Nothing seemed to be working. "Please?" I added quietly. Nothing.

I've been in this butt barn for two week. It's _horrible. _First of all, the food tastes like crap. Correction: The food _is _crap. Second of all, there's that gross old man. I've managed to avoid him so far. Third of all, this bathroom situation sucks. It turns out that the toilet in the middle of the room was just for the people in here who were disabled and couldn't make it to the real bathroom. I was totally thrilled when I learned that, but the alternative isn't that much better. The good bathroom is down this super long hallway. It's a pretty nice big bathroom, I guess. The problem is that if there's someone waiting to use the bathroom, you only get five minutes. And the workers only clean it twice a week, so there's soap and dried toothpaste all over the sink, and the shower is _disgusting._

Suddenly, the entrance door creaked open. Was I finally being let out? Nope. False alarm. Or should I say, _another _false alarm. That stupid door's been opening and closing all week.

In stepped a woman with shoulder length light brown hair and a pretty face. She quietly walked over to her bed in the corner and drew the curtain around it without a word, just like always. Her name was Annie, and she's from District Four. She won the Games some years ago, but she went crazy afterward, so they kept her here in the Capitol. Annie's lucky-she gets to leave every day and walk around the building and stuff. She only has to sleep here. I, on the other hand, am under lock and key around here. If only they would just let me out for a breath of fresh air, I could knock out my guards easily and run for it. But, no. They only let people out for the day if they've been here at least month and are stable enough to be let out. I plan on getting out of here before then, so I guess no leisurely walks for me!

I shuffled to my little corner and slumped down on my bed, exhausted. From across the room I saw the old man get up from his bed and slowly start to walk towards me. I swore under my breath.

"Clove Tremain?" the old man asked when he approached me. "From District Two?"

Wow. I didn't know he could talk that well. I answered, "Yes, I'm Clove from District Two."

"You were in the Hunger Games with my grandson," he said slowly, like he was trying to understand something.

I snorted. "What? No. I was in the Hunger Games with a guy named Cato, _not_ your-" I suddenly got what he was saying. This was Cato's _grandfather._

He seemed to see the surprise on my face, and he nodded. "Yes, Cato is my grandson. Well, he _was, _until he…" Cato's grandpa's eyes filled up with tears and he looked away.

With a jolt I realized that he must not know that Cato's alive. I jumped off my bed and helped him onto it. I lowered my voice and said, "Cato isn't dead! He almost was, but they did surgery and he's almost as good as new!"

He looked up at me. "Do not lie, Clove."

"I'm not! I protested. They did the same to Marvel and Glimmer from District One! They did it to me, too! Do you not remember when I died?"

Cato's grandpa blinked. Then he smiled. "Well, I suppose so! Oh, praise the Lord! My grandson is alive!" The a sudden look of recognition flashed across his face as he looked at me. "I believe I know you from somewhere else, as well…" he said. "I got it! You are Cato's…girlfriend, correct?"

I swallowed. _Was._ "Um, yes, sir, I am."

Cato's grandpa seemed to see through me. His face hardened as he said, "Clove, do you still love my grandson?"

"I..um…yes." I found myself saying. It was then that I realized that I still _did _love Cato. And I realized that I needed to talk to him. As soon as possible. And I also realized that I was going to get out of there. Tonight.


	5. Escape

**Hi, everybody! I'm sorry I haven't updated for a while! I haven't had ANY ideas! Well, I did have some ideas for the basic outline for the chapter, like Clove escaping, but I just couldn't figure out how to start it! So if the beginning's lame, that's why. Please review!**

Chapter Five: Escape

_Clove_

After talking to Cato's grandpa, I had lain in bed all day, trying to plan my escape. About an hour before everyone else fell asleep, one of the guards came over and handed me a letter without a word. He gave me a look, and then walked away. Weird. When he left I opened the envelope, confused. Who would send _me_ a letter? There was no indication of the sender-just the words _Clove Tremain_ on the front of the envelope written in swirly handwriting. This is what the letter said:

_Clove-_

_I know we're not usually super close, but I thought I should warn you. First of all, Marvel got a comunicuff, and he has access to a bunch of top-secret Capital information. He says they're going to be training us for something. He doesn't know what for, but he saw the applications for the trainers. Apparently they're getting a special trainer from every district. The Capital must be planning something big. Anyway, Marvel also found out that they won't be letting you out for a while. That's why you need to get out _now_. Marvel and I have a plan to help you._

_The person who gave you this letter will be on guard duty tonight. You can trust him. If anyone's awake, just pretend you feel sick and ask him to take you to see the doctor. He'll explain everything on the way. Be careful. Destroy the letter, and make it so no one can read or find it again. Oh, and one more thing, Clove –Don't mess up._

_ Glimmer, District One_

Huh. District One's trying to help me. It is a pretty good plan, I guess. I shredded up the letter as best I could and then flushed it down the toilet.

I laid in bed for a while, pretending to be asleep. When the clock struck midnight I reached under my pillow and pulled out my favorite knife and tucked it into my jacket. I got up, groaned, clutched my stomach, and staggered to the door.

Glimmer was right, the guard who delivered my letter was right next to the door on duty. "I-I feel sick. Can you take me to see the doctor?" I asked.

The guard nodded brusquely and quietly opened the door. I slipped through. While we were walking through the empty hall, the guard turned to me and introduced himself.

"Hello, Clove. My name is Hunter."

"Hey."

"When we get to the hospital wing, I'm just going to let you slip through the door. There are no patients right now, so the place will be empty. Go to District Seven's room. Marvel will be waiting there. He'll take you to your room."

"Oookay…" I said, comprehending this. "But won't someone notice if I'm walking around unattended? I mean, I'm supposed to be in that crazy butt barn for a while still."

"We've already got that all figured out. My boss, the head of the Mentally Disoriented Room, has to sign a bunch of papers all day. He never really looks at the papers; he just signs them, so I slipped your release forms into his pile of papers yesterday. So…" Hunter reached into his back pocket and pulled out a couple of papers. "If anybody asks, you just tell them to come see me and I'll show them the papers. Simple."

By now we had reached the big double doors that led to the hospital wing. Hunter took a key ring off of his belt and unlocked one of the doors. The lock was very, very tiny, located at the bottom of the door and really hard to see.

"Wouldn't a Capital door have something a little more protective than a lock and key?" I asked.

"Yes, actually there's a handprint analyzer right there," Hunter said, pointing to a big square next to the big silver doors. "Not a lot of people know about this lock. President Snow doesn't even know. It's a special lock. Only a select few have the key to it. It's here because we use the hospital as a meeting place during the night, and the Head of Security checks the hand analyzer in the morning to see if anybody's been in there, so this is a lot less risky. Alright, Clove. If you need me, Marvel has my comunicuff code. Good luck!"

"Thanks, Hunter! I'll see you soon!" I slipped through the door and found myself in a darkened hallway. There were doors on each side of me. My feet echoed through the long hallway as I looked at each door. There was a number on each; a number for every district. It looked like the odds were on my left, the evens on my right. Hunter had told me to go to District Seven's room. I found it and eased the door opened. I closed it behind me. This room was even darker than the hallway, and the big shapes of hospital beds and chairs were creepy. I sucked in my breath. Something had moved by the big chair in the corner.

"H-hello?" I stammered.

"Clove?" a familiar voice asked. I sighed in relief. It was only Marvel. He stood up and flicked on a flashlight. The room was suddenly brightened. "Right on time, nice job."

"Thanks. So why are we in District Seven's room? It's pretty random."

"That's exactly why we're in Seven's room. It's just a random room, there's no way anyone would connect us with District Seven. Well, follow me. Glimmer's waiting. And ssh! Be quiet!"

We slipped out of the room into the hallway again and left the hospital wing. After many twists and turns throughout the building, we finally made it into the rooms where I would be staying. Marvel led me to a room with a big 2 on it. We walked in to see Glimmer and Cato lounging on a couch watching TV. When Glimmer saw us she immediately jumped up and gave me a hug. "Clove! You made it!"

Cato stood up. I almost cried in relief. No more headgear. No more stumpy legs. No more hunch backs. He looked just like my sexy muscle man from District Two. He held out his arms, and I leapt into them.

"Hey, Clover," he murmured in my ear.

I smiled at him and replied softly, "My name's Clove, dumbass."

**Ok, there's the chapter. Now. The part at the end with "My name's Clove, dumbass!" is taken from BlackRoseOpal's story, ****The Unknown Lovers of District 2.**** I do not own it. Well I hoped you liked it! Please, please, PLEASE review!**


	6. WHAT!

Chapter Six: WHAT?

_Glimmer_

About a week after Clove escaped, Cato, Marvel, Clove and I were called into a meeting room. I sat between Marvel and Clove. Dr. Samuel strode into the room.

"Hello," he greeted us calmly. "Let's get down to business. What does everybody think about being alive right now?"

What? What kind of question was that? "Well, it's definitely better than being dead!" Cato exclaimed.

"And it's pretty cool that we're the only ones that it's happened to." I added.

Dr. Samuel shook his head. "Actually, you're _not_ the first people that it's happened to. It's happened almost every year, to a _ton_ of tributes. And they're all alive and well, in District Thirteen."

"WHAT?"

**:0! What? District Thirteen? I know. Shocker. Sorry about the unbelievable shortness of this chapter, but I thought after that piece of information, I needed to cut it off and leave it hanging. But don't worry, it will all be explained in the next chapter! And I just wanted to say THANK YOU SO MUCH to everybody who's been reviewing my stories! It means so much to me!**


	7. Training

**Hi, everybody, sorry this chapter is so long, but SOME PEOPLE *cough, cough* MIA! thought my last one was short and suckish. (Ok, when I typed suckish, one of the spelling suggestions was suckfish. I think I'm gonna start saying that.) Hope you like it!**

Chapter Seven: Training

_Glimmer_

"What the hell? District Thirteen?" Clove screeched.

"But it was blown up!" I cried.

"Dr. Samuel nodded grimly. "Yes, it _was_ blown up, but all of the saved tributes are living _underneath_ the surface."

"Why haven't we heard of this before?" Marvel asked.

"Think about it," Dr. Samuel explained. "If the districts found out that we were saving tributes, they wouldn't be as angry at the Capital for the Games, That might be good, but obviously we can't save _all _the tributes- we wouldn't be able to save one that was stabbed in the heart, for example. Then the people of Panem would be mad if _their _kid wasn't saved. So we would have a whole new problem on our hands. Even you, Marvel, we didn't think we'd be able to save you, since you were shot in the neck."

I squeezed Marvel's hand. I didn't think I would be able to live with myself if I survived and he didn't.

"So, what's going to happen to us?" Marvel asked. "Are we going to District Thirteen?"

Dr. Samuel nodded. "Yes, eventually you will be going to live in Thirteen. But first you will be specially trained."

"For what? Are we gonna get to kick some more ass?" Cato asked, looking excited.

Dr. Samuel smiled. "The tributes living in District Thirteen are a sort of…army for the Capital. We bring in a special trainers that are experts in each district. They will teach each of you fighting techniques from every district. You will live in District Thirteen under the radar until you are needed."

Well alright then.

_Clove_

"Clove! Are you ready yet?" Glimmer yelled through my door.

I groaned and covered my head with the pillow. "What? I just woke up!"

I heard Glimmer sigh. "_Clove!_ We have to be down in training in two minutes!"

I sat up. "Why didn't you wake me up?" I threw my covers off and opened the door for Glimmer. She was standing there in shorts and a tank top with an annoyed look on her face.

"You said you were just gonna meet us down there! You told me I didn't have to wake you up! Anyway, hurry up and get dressed." Glimmer walked off, her curly blonde ponytail swinging. "One minute!" she called as she turned the corner.

I slammed the door and dug through the drawers, pulling out the first outfit I could find. I was about to leave when my stomach rumbled. I opened the mini fridge in my room and shoved some crackers and squirted whipped cream into my mouth, and washed it down with a long drink from a bottle of lemonade. _Yum. _

I sprinted down the hall and jumped into the elevator. I put my hair into a messy bun as the elevator descended into the basement of the building.

_Glimmer_

I checked the clock on the wall for about the billionth time that morning. It's a good thing the trainers weren't here yet-Clove was late. She probably went back to bed after I went up there, the lazy lard.

Just when I thought she couldn't be any later, Clove burst through the gym door.

"Finally!" I cried as she came over.

She crossed her arms and glared at me. "Well I wouldn't have been late if _someone_ had woken me up!"

I threw up my hands in exasperation. "You told me _not _to wake you up!"

Thankfully, the door opened. A woman walked in. She had bright blue eyes and straight brown hair.

"Hi!" she said, waving at us. "I'm Allie Samuel, the head trainer."

Clove frowned next to me. "Wait," she said slowly. "Are you related to Dr. Samuel?"

Allie nodded. "Yep! He's my husband!" she held out her hand to shake Clove's but Clove frowned and looked down.

"You must be Glimmer!" she said, turning toward me. "You're from One, right?"

When I nodded Allie smiled. "I used to live in One, too. But after my Games, I moved to the Capital and became a trainer."

"You won a Games?" Clove asked, impressed.

"No. When I was only thirteen years old, I was reaped for the Games. I was one of the saved tributes. They saved a lot that year. I got second place. You've probably heard of the victor: Finnick Odair, District Four." Allie responded.

"I thought there were going to twelve trainers," Marvel said as he and Cato came over to us.

Right on cue, the door opened. More people came in. "Here they are now!" Allie chirped. "Ok, I'll introduce you by district. Trainers, this is Marvel and Glimmer from District One, and Cato and Clove from Two." A trainer with long brown waves stepped forward.

"Hi, guys! I'm Mia, the trainer from District Two." She turned towards Cato and Clove. "I'm so excited to meet you two! I love that this year I get to train _two_ kids from Two this year!"

While Clove chatted with Mia, Allie introduced us to some of the other trainers. There was Izabelle from Seven, who could swing an ax so perfectly it should be illegal. And then Gabby from Eleven and Claire from Twelve.

"Ok, everyone, can I have your attention, please!" All eyes were trained on Allie. "You will be trained by each trainer separately, and they will teach you the secrets and powers of their districts. For your final test, you will be sent into 12 different rooms that look like the twelve different districts. You will need to know each district like the back of your hand in case you are needed to fight there. Ok! Cato, why don't you go with Izabelle? Glimmer, go with Claire, and Clove, go with Gabby. Marvel, you'll come with me."

"But why would I need to learn about District One if I've lived there for seventeen years already?" Marvel asked, confused.

"You might've lived there your whole life, but do you know _everything _about it? Do you know it back and forth, left and right? District One is big, Marvel. You've only lived in part of it. There's still more to learn." Allie explained. She took Marvel to a sectioned-off part of the room. The sign hanging above it had a big 1 on it. Clove followed Gabby to Eleven's section, and Cato went to Seven's section.

"Hey, Glimmer! Are you coming or what?" Claire was waiting for me by District Twelve's section.

"So what are your strengths?" Claire asked when I got there.

"Well," I said. "I'm pretty good with a bow and arrow, I guess."

Claire snorted. "I saw you _attempt_ to shoot an arrow in the Games, Glimmer. And let me tell you: it wasn't just a fail- it was a _colonial _fail."

I sighed. _Everyone_ said that to me. "_Usually_ I'm good with a bow and arrow!" I protested. "I'm not spectacular, but I'm not _bad_ at it. I just panicked! If you were in an arena surrounded with a bunch of people who wanted to kill you, wouldn't you probably miss too?"

Claire chuckled. "I _have _been in arena, Glimmer. But I didn't miss. I _never _miss." She suddenly grabbed a bow off a rack of weapons and pulled an arrow out of her pocket. She aimed the arrow, and sent it flying. A few seconds later I heard the _thud_ of the arrow hitting a straw dummy all the way across the room. Claire lowered her bow and tossed it on the floor, looking pleased with herself.

"Wow," I said, impressed. "You really _don't_ miss. Which Games did you win?"

Claire's face stiffened. "I _didn't _win," she said, a sullen look on her face. "I almost did, though. Actually, I lost to Allie over there. I got third place. They saved me here."

"Wait, if you got third place to Allie, was she the one that tried to kill you?" I asked, surprised. Allie and Claire seemed to have gotten along fine.

"No, she wasn't. Allie and I were allies." Claire explained. "Actually, I was in the Games with Mia, Izabelle and Gabby, too. Allie got second place; me third, Mia fourth, and Izabelle and Gabby got fifth; they died at exactly the same time. We were all saved here. Sometime maybe I'll show you the recording of our Games." Claire shouldered her bow and held another one out to me. "But now, we need to get down to business. Show me what ya got. Aim for that dummy suspended from the ceiling. Hit it in its stomach. Go."

I drew back my arm and sent the arrow flying. It hit the dummy, only a few inches off my target.

"Nice," Claire said, nodding in approval. "You need a little bit of work on aiming, but still, you're pretty good. Now, how are you with foils?"

For the next hour Claire taught me how to fence. She was _really_ good- even better than archery. At the end of the session, I was exhausted.

"Great job, Glimmer," Claire said to me, swiping her blonde bangs damp with sweat off to the side.

_Clove_

_ How_ did I get stuck with _this_ trainer? I thought miserably. Training had been a nightmare. Allie pared me with Gabby from District Eleven. Sure, she swung through trees like nobody's business, but she was such a _loser. _She talked my fucking ear off!

At first, she seemed really cool! She told me about her life in the Games, and showed me some techniques for swinging through trees quickly without being seen through the branches.

But then, she started telling me about her life back in District Eleven. The first thing that convinced me that she was a loser was the first thing she told me.

Gabby lived in a school bus.

Then, when I was showing off my wicked cool knife skills, two new losers popped out of a tree. Gabby introduced them as Cullen and Victor, her friends. The first, Victor, smelled really bad and was fat. Cullen kept asking stupid questions. I threw a knife at them and told them to smell my pants. They thought I was serious.

Once, Gabby's nerd friends left, it started to be pretty fun. Gabby and I made a game of who could swing through trees the fastest. When she won, Gabby pulled out a trombone and started playing a victory song. Oh, great. It just got miserable again.


	8. The Victor's Ball?

**Ok, I forgot to say this at the end of my last chapter: **

**1. Mia, Claire, Izzy, and Gabby are based off of my four best friends!**

**2. Allie is ME!**

**3. Mia, Claire, Izzy, Gabby and Allie ARE our real names!**

**4. Contrary to what my story says, Gabby, I do NOT think you are a loser! (Well, sometimes I do.****) **

Chapter Eight

_Clove_

_Finally,_ I thought. _I get a_ good _trainer._ It was the second day of training, and Allie actually paired me up with someone good this time. Mia was really funny- she loves knives as much as I do! She was just like me- she loved to make fun of Katniss! We compared knives and stories. It was so fun! It seemed like everybody was having a good day. Glimmer was laughing at something Gabby said, and Cato looked like he was having fun at the axe swinging station.

"Hey, Clove," Mia asked me. "You going to the Victor's Ball?"

"The Victor's Ball?"

"Uh, yeah! It's one of the biggest event of the year! It's where all the living victors from each district get together for a big party."

"But I'm not a victor. Duh."

Mia sharpened her knife against her shoe. "Clove, I'm pretty sure a victor is someone who survived the Hunger Games. And I'm pretty sure you survived. So you're going." With that she stood up and left, twirling her knife between her fingers.

_Glimmer_

Gabby wiped the laugh tears out of her eyes. "So are you excited for the Victor's Ball or what?"

I lowered my bow. "What's that?"

"Come _on_ Glimmer! Don't tell me you've never heard of the Victor's Ball! It's the best dance EVER! All the victors spend the whole day getting ready, and the Capital prepares for weeks in advance. It's tomorrow night. You'll probably be meeting your stylists tonight. Anyway, I gotta go. See you tomorrow!" Gabby walked off, leaving me with an empty bow and a full head.

**Sorry that this chapter is so stupid. I didn't have any ideas for what to say next.**


	9. Meeting the Stylists

**Thank you sooo much to everybody who gave me reviews! I get so excited when I see a new one! And I'm so honored that some of you even put me on your Favorite Author, Favorite Story, or Alert lists. You guys are awesome!**

Chapter Nine: The Stylists

_Glimmer_

"Ahhh…" I sighed in relief as six shower heads shot warm water around my body. Training with Gabby had been exhausting. Three straight hours of archery, swinging through trees, lighting fires, and clinging to swinging ropes. I was pooped.

After my shower, I twirled my hair into a towel and put on some comfy sweats. I checked the giant clock on my wall. I still had forty five minutes until I had to go downstairs to meet my stylist. I yawned as I started to work a comb through my tangled blonde curls. Maybe there was time for a nap, too. I turned on my sound machine and fell asleep to the soothing sounds of waterfalls and birds chirping.

_Clove_

I jammed my finger against the elevator button marked with a 2 and leaned against the wall, waiting for the shiny gold doors to close. I felt gross. Mia was a hard trainer. I couldn't wait to take a shower.

When the doors opened on my floor, I trudged down the hall to my suite. I took a quick shower and ordered some chicken nuggets.

There was a pounding on my door. "Hey, Clove, open up!" I got up and opened the door. It was Cato.

"Hey, you know we need to be downstairs in like five minutes, right?" he asked. I groaned and followed him out the door.

_Glimmer_

"Glimmer." I woke up to a face inches away from my face.

"AH!" I screamed, diving back under my covers. I peeked. Oh. It was only Marvel. "What are you doing?" asked.

"Uh, did you forget that we're supposed to be having dinner with our stylists tonight? You're late. They sent me up here to get you."

"Oh, crap!" I jumped out of bed.

_Clove_

"Hey, look who decided to show up!" Mia said as we walked into the dining room.

Just then Glimmer and Marvel walked in. "Hey, sleepyhead!" Allie said to Glimmer.

Four new people strode in. Allie gestured to one of the males. He had dark brown hair that hung in his eyes. "Glimmer, this is your stylist, Remington. He'll get you ready for the Victor's Ball tomorrow. And Marvel, this is your stylist, Thorne."

"Hello!" A petite girl with wavy red hair stepped forward.

"So I'm guessing those two are our stylists, right?" I asked, pointing to the remaining two people standing there.

"Yep! Hi, I'm Cilla, Cato's stylist!" said the woman with curly brown hair.

"Well _hello,_ Cilla!" Cato said, gliding over to Cilla and putting his arm around her.

"Cato!" I barked. "Remember who your girlfriend is."

Cato chuckled. "Easy, babe. I'm just kidding around."

"Hey, Clove, I'm Luke, your stylist, by the way." A guy with silky black hair and smooth green eyes shook my hand.

"Oh, _hello _Luke! I'm so glad to meet you!" I cried, batting my eyelashes at him. I sneaked a peak at Cato. Mission accomplished. He was scowling. I winked at Glimmer, who was giggling. For good, measure, I added a kiss on Luke's cheek.


	10. Family Reunion

Chapter 10: Family Reunion

_Clove_

"Clove, darling! Time to wake up, dear!" I rubbed my eyes and sat up.

A person-I think it was a person-with hot pink skin, chocolate brown hair, and black eyes was standing before me.

"What the hell are you?" I exclaimed.

He (or she?) looked hurt. "Why, Clove," it said. "'I'm your older brother Johnny!"

I stared at him. Soon, I started to believe him. The hair…the features on his face…it was all the same…

I gave Johnny a bone-crushing hug. "Why are you here?"

"I work at the Capital, silly! When you left for the Games, I ran away to here and got a job!"

"Well that's great! But, uh…why are you in my room?"

Johnny grinned. "I'm part of your prepping team!"

My last thought before I fainted was, _Oh, hell. This should be fun._

_Glimmer_

_Glimmer, wake up. Glimmer, wake up. Glimmer, wake up. Glim- _

"I'M UP!" I screamed at electronic alarm clock. I threw off my covers and walked to my closet. There was a note attached to it.

_Glimmer- You don't need to get dressed- your prep team will be working on you immediately. _

_-Remington_

I walked into the hallway. I knew Marvel was still asleep because the _Do Not Disturb_ sign was still hung on the doorknob. Ignoring the sign, I quietly walked in and sat on the edge of Marvel's bed. Wow. Marvel's room was a _mess._ There were clothes strewn all over the floor, and his desk was buried in papers. Probably a bunch of Capital information he stole. The scent of his favorite cologne hung in the air. There was a framed picture of me and Marvel on his nightstand. And under a mass of pillows and blankets, Marvel's blond hair peeked out.

"Marrrrrvellllll," I sang. "Time to wake uuuuuppppp!"

Marvel sleepily opened one blue eye. He smiled when he saw me. "Hey. What are you doing in here?"

"Waking you up to come to breakfast with me!" I grabbed his hands and pulled him out of bed. "Come on, sleepyhead. We've gotta get down there before Clove finishes all the bacon!"

_Clove_

"I'm so excited, we're gonna have so much fun, and I'm gonna design you all the best clothes and…." I was trying to walk down to breakfast, but Johnny was skipping behind me telling me all the fun we're gonna have…ugh. I whirled around to face him.

"Ok, listen up. First of all, you will NOT be designing any clothes for me; you're part of my prep team, NOT my stylist. And second of all, if you don't get off my back and start acting normal again, you will NOT be part of my team anymore, kay? And, uh, when did you start acting so…so _gay?"_

Johnny sighed and shook his head at me. "Oh, dearest Clove. I used to be a misunderstood teen just like you who wanted to defy my parents, so I ran away to the Capital. But, I met someone who changed me around. Someone who is the love of my life."

I crossed my arms. "Well, okay, then, what's her name?"

"_His_ name is Gloss, formerly of District One." Johnny said proudly.

I gaped at him. "You are _fucking _kidding me."

Johnny frowned and shook his head. "You know, you really shouldn't use that kind of language."

I threw up my hands. "_You_ taught me that word! When I was _ten! _When you used to smoke and do drugs and other stupid stuff!"

"See, Clove, Gloss helped me break all those horrid habits. You should try to find your soul mate, too."

I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. "She_ does_ have a…soul mate. It's me. And I'm pretty sure Clove can use whatever fucking language she wants." Cato said. He slipped his arm around me. "Come on, let's go." We walked away from the mistake that I'm ashamed to call my older brother.


	11. Prepping

**ATTENTION EVERYBODY! I NEED CHARACTERS! If you wubs me as much as I wubs you guys, you'll either tell me in a review or PM me about your ideas for characters! You can give me as many as you want! I need to know their name (obviously), their age, the district they came from, their description, and anything else you want to add. Male or female, doesn't matter! And if you give me a character, you WILL be mentioned, even if I don't end up using them. Thank you!**

Chapter Eleven: Prepping

"Okay, Marvel, we're supposed to go to the District One room." I said, looking at a small map Remington had given me.

"I think I found it," Marvel said, gazing up at a huge sparkly white door with the number 1 written in light blue sequins.

Cato and Clove stopped across the hall at a steel door etched with scenes from various Games. The door was surrounded with paintings of weapons, and in the middle of the door, there was a 2 written in red pant supposed to resemble blood.

"Awesome," Cato and Clove breathed at the same time. "Well," Clove said. "See ya at the ball!" She pushed open the door, and Cato eagerly followed her inside.

Marvel and I walked into our door. Allie was there, getting golden highlights painted into her hair by a plump little lady. "Heyyyy," she said, getting up, much to the distress of her hair stylist. "So are you ready for the ball?" she asked when she got over to us. Her hair stylist followed her, waving her chubby arms wildly.

"We haven't even started prepping yet!" I said.

Allie waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, nothing to worry about. The dance is almost ten hours away! Oh," she said, as if noticing her stylist for the first time, "this is Hannah. She's doing my hair for the ball."

Hannah placed her meaty little fingers on her hips. "And you won't be ready unless you sit your fancy little butt back down her on this chair!"

Allie sighed. "Oh, all right," she said, following Hannah back to her chair. "See you at the ball!" she called over her shoulder.

"Marvel! Glimmer!" a voice behind us called. Thorne was waiting for us. She took us into a big room with tons of plush, comfortable-looking chairs, five huge bookshelves, and three roaring fires. We sat down in a circle of armchairs next to a fire.

"Every year, the victors wear something that represents their district," Thorne explained. "So for District One, Remington and I want to put you in something absolutely stunning. Like District One! So you'll be wearing a lot of white, a lot of blue, and a lot of diamonds. In between prepping, this will be the room you'll relax in. Feel free to take any book you like and order any food you like. Glimmer, your team is waiting for you through the door to my left. Marvel, follow me."

_Clove_

Cato and I walked into District Two's prepping room and were greeted by Mia, who apparently had just gotten out of the shower, because she was wearing nothing but a towel. A huge grin lit up Cato's face. I smacked him.

"Hey, guys. Do you know what you're wearing?" Mia asked us.

"Nope, we just got here," Cato replied. "Ooh! Is that the snack table?" he made a beeline for it, while Mia and followed him at a leisurely pace.

"Shit," Cato said. He spilled his cup of who-knows-what.

"Oh, it's okay," Mia said, walking over. "Anything you spill the floor will soak up." She twisted her wet hair so a stream of water fell onto the floor. In a matter of seconds, it was soaked up. "See?"

_Glimmer_

As I walked nearer to the door my team was in, I could hear voices leaking out of it. Suddenly I heard a hushed, "Shhh! Glimmer's coming!" I walked in to three people lined up staring at me.

"Uh, hi," I sad, uncomfortable under their piercing stares.

The woman embraced me. "Hello, Glimmer! I'm Laphamah! We're so excited to be part of your team! These are Rab and Dusty, the rest of your team," she said, pointing to the two men standing there. Dusty seemed to be dyed grey, and Rab's hair was cut short to his head and was swirled with intricate designs. It was also died a deep shade of purple.

Over the course of the next four hours, I had taken three showers (the first a pre-grooming rinse, the second to remove all the cleansing, moisturizing, and conditioning creams and scrubs Laphamah had rubbed on me, and the third a post-grooming rinse), two shampoos, a manicure, a pedicure, a facial, a blowout, and pretty much every other grooming process you could imagine. Finally, I was given some sweats and sent into the big room we were in before.

I ordered a cup of tea and saw Marvel across the room. Wrapping the sleeves of my oversized sweatshirt around the steaming mug, I walked over to him. I could tell his hair and just been blow-dried, because it swept across his forehead in silky blond waves.

"Marvel?"

"Hmm?" His blue eyes snapped up from the book he was reading. Marvel's face broke into a grin when he saw me. "Hey," he said. He patted the space on the couch next to him. I sat down and leaned my head on his shoulder.

"How was grooming?" he murmured, playing with my hair.

"Fine, I guess. How was yours?"

"It was…interesting. My stylists have very different opinions about some subjects. How were your stylists?"

"Nice enough. Do you know what you're wearing?"

"No. But Thorne said we're wearing something that represents our districts, so…"

"Looks like we'll be covered in body jewels again!" I finished for him. We laughed. For the opening ceremony of the Games, Marvel and I had been covered in jewels-just jewels. It was pretty awkward, as you can probably imagine.

"Well, Thorne said we have about three hours until we have to really start getting ready," Marvel told me. "You should take a nap; you look really tired."

I yawned. "Okay." I put my empty mug on the coffee table and Marvel put a blanket on me. I was asleep within minutes.


	12. The Victor's Ball

**Come on, everybody, I need characters! Help me! And for my guy readers, you might hate this chapter; it has a bunch of girly dress descriptions and stuff. And everybody, if you think there are WAY too many descriptions in here, I'm sowwy! I wubs describing stuff! It's mee fav! I hope you like this chapter! Once I got the idea for it, I couldn't wait to begin, and I had a great time writing it. And the song that the audience from IS from Shake It Up… I was listening to it while I was writing and it inspired me. **** And yes, Mia, Clove's hair was inspired by your Riley hairdo. KISSES!**

Chapter 12: The Victor's Ball

_Clove_

After five grueling hours of enduring my brother's annoying presence, Cato and I were called back into the main grooming room. Cilla and Luke were there. Cilla had her hands behind her back. She held them out, and in her hands was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It was a sleek black strapless dress. The bottom right edge of it was bunched to make the vague shape of a flower. It was so simple, yet so pretty. And I'm not much of a girly person, but I LOVED it.

"Is it…for me?" I asked, touching the soft material.

Cilla answered me with a smile and a nod. "Luke made it,"

"I thought were more of a simpler girl. Not too familiar with sequins and sparkles," Luke said.

I gave him a hug. "It's _perfect!"_

"So what am I wearing?" Cato asked behind me. Luke pulled out a hanger from a rack. On the hanger were simple black dress pants and a crisp white shirt with a black tie.

"That's it? That's_ all_ I get to wear." Cato said.

Luke and Cilla looked at each other uncertainly. "We…thought you weren't too into all the glammer of fancy clothes." Cilla finally said.

Cato's face broke into a grin. "Well you thought right!" he grabbed the clothes and raced toward his dressing room. I carefully took my dress and went to mine.

_Glimmer_

"_Wow,"_ Marvel breathed when he saw me. "I guess we're not wearing body jewels after all!"

I blushed and looked in the mirror for the billionth time. Remington had put me in a short strapless white dress made out of something I could only describe as tutu material, and my stomach was covered in a short, fitted emerald green sash with a strip of diamonds going down it. Heavy diamond and emerald earrings dripped just below my shoulders, and an emerald choker pendant lay in the hollow of my throat. Strappy silver heels wound up my ankles. Rab had painted my nails with a sparkly silver polish. Laphamah had given me another blowout and added some curl-boosting cream to my hair and glossed every curl so it bounced and gleamed. She pulled my hair up into a high ponytail. The curls rained down from the thick pony, reaching to the very tip of my spine. At the last minute, Dusty had spritzed me with _CapitalGurl!_ perfume and dusted (haha, Dusty dusted) silver body glitter on my arms and legs, and sprinkled some in my hair so my hair bounced, gleamed, _and_ sparkled. I stepped off the pedestal and into Marvel's arms. He took my hand and twirled me around and then kissed me on the cheek.

"You know," he said, tucking a blond curl around my ear, "those emeralds really make your eyes pop."

"You look pretty shnazzy, too!" I said to him, guiding him over to the mirror. With him in black dress pants, white shirt, and silky grey tuxedo vest and my curly blond head smiling over his shoulder, we looked the perfect part of a beautiful Capital couple.

_Clove_

"Wow," Cato said, pointing at me. "Nice."

"You too." I said, stepping into my black suede ankle boots. I dabbed a couple drops of my favorite perfume, _Bloody Beautiful,_ on my wrists and grabbed my bag. "Alright, let's go!" I said, walking out the door.

"Wait," Cato said, catching my wrist. "I wanted to give you something." He placed a small black jewelry box in my hand.

I opened it slowly. "It's beautiful," I breathed, taking it out. He had given me a small silver knife pendant. It shimmered as it caught the dying light filtering through the window.

"Do I have to put it on all by myself?"

Cato smiled and took the necklace from me. I swept my hair away from my neck as he snapped the clasp. "Okay, _now_ let's go," he said, reaching for my hand.

_Glimmer_

Marvel and I walked hesitantly backstage where Thorne had directed us.

"So…where exactly are we supposed to be going?" I wondered aloud.

"Uhhh….oh! There are Cato and Clove." Marvel said, tugging my hand in their direction.

"Day-ummm, you kids look niiiice!" Clove said when we walked over to them.

"Thanks, so do you! I love your hair! Fannncy!" I replied.

Clove was wearing a strapless sleek black minidress that fell to about three inches above her knee. The bottom right corner was cleverly bunched together to create a flower. Her fishnet-clad legs disappeared into two black suede ankle boots. Highlights had been added to her brown hair, and it had been twisted into a messy-chic chignon at the back of her head. Her side bangs had been straightened to perfection, and several curly wisps were dangling around her face. I noticed shining silver….knife? hanging from her neck on a silver chain. Clove's left arm was up to the elbow in a fingerless fishnet glove, and her right hand was covered in a shorter one.

"Hey, gorgeus!" Allie said, coming up behind me. She was wearing a sky blue satin halter dress that had three long ruffles falling from it down to the middle of her shin. Silky white gloves covered both Allie's forearms, and her long newly-highlighted brown hair had been straightened and draped over her left shoulder. HUGE pearl studs glittered in her ears. She was carrying some kind of drink in her hand. "So how are you likin the ball?"

"We just got here," Marvel answered.

"Well, you won't be bored for long. The President will be making his opening speech momentarily."

"The _President's_ here?" I gasped.

Before Allie could answer, Dr. Samuel walked up to us. "Hello everyone," he said in his sexy Aussie accent. "I see you two got past your, ah…differences," he said, nodding toward Cato's arm draped around Clove.

Allie started to laugh. "Oh, yeah, I heard about that. _Nice_, Clove. Scalping? Wish I'd thought of that in the Games!"

Then Dr. Samuel said, "Oh, Cato, congratulations! I was so happy to hear that you were able to stop using your Pissball!"

Marvel and I exploded into hysterics.

Clove immediately jumped a foot away from Cato. "What in the _hell,_" she spat, "is a _Pissball?"_

Cato's face was so red I could practically _feel _the humiliation radiating from him. "Uh..it was uh, a…condition I had when I was in the, uh…hospital…not a big problem, it's fixed now, so don't worry-"

"That is absolutely _disgusting!" _Clove cried. Then she started to giggle. "But it's pretty hilarious, too." She put Cato's arm back around her. "It's okay, Dr. Samuel told us like a year ago, so it's not like this is anything new."

"What? Why did you tell them?" Cato cried, shaking his fist at Dr. Samuel.

Dr. Samuel took Allie's hand. "Maybe we should go…" he said, pulling her away.

Allie waved over her shoulder. "Byeeeee!" she called.

We all kinda just stood there until Mia showed up in a long black mermaid dress. It was strapless with small corset strings at the top. Black sequins covered the whole area from the top of the dress, and then the tightness gave way to the flowing lighter black tulle skirt. Big black gems were fanned out across the top four inches of the skirt. Mia's hair had been darkened and curled, and as she shook her head, the curls cascaded down her back. Gold hoop earrings swung in her ears, and the tips of metallic gold ballet flats were visible under the hem of her dress. She had a bunch of drinks in her hand.

"You want?" she asked, holding them out to us. We each took one, and then a ring-covered finger shot out behind Mia and snatched one.

"Oh, of _course_ Gabrielle wants more!" Mia said, turning around. Claire and Gabby were standing there. Claire was wearing gold gladiator sandals and a knee-length red dress. The top was covered in lacy black material and the whole dress was streaked with gold. Her hair had been corkscrewed into fat blonde ringlets and pulled into a half-pony. Claire was also wearing huge gold earrings shaped like dream catchers.

"I just wubs your dress! Who's your stylist?" I asked Claire.

She flipped a ringlet over her shoulder. "His name's McQueen."

Gabby waved her fingers, making her rings glitter. "And let's not forget the best dressed one here!" She yanked a microphone from the stand and climbed up on stage.

"What are you doing?" Claire hissed.

Gabby pointed to the DJ, who put on a catchy song for her. She twirled and landed with her hand on her hip. She looked at the audience disapprovingly. She cupped her hand around her ear. "Oh, come _on_ people! I can't hear you!"

All of a sudden the audience burst into song.

_We can make a change, it's our generation! You gotta raise your voice, say what you feel! We can make a change, it's our generation!_

"That's better!" shouted Gabby. "Now we can go on with our show! Gabrielle is looking beautiful this evening," she said into the mic, making the audience laugh. "Shall we hear what she's wearing?"

Gabby started to strut around the stage. "Tonight, I am wearing a stunning goddess dress the color of golden wheat, the main part of District Eleven's industry. My hair has been side-braided and draped over my shoulder," she continued, stroking her hair. "And my braid is WAY better than Katniss Everdeen's! Can I get a what, what?"

The audience gave her a what, what.

"And I bet you're all wondering what kind of shoes I'm wearing. WELL!" Gabby stuck a foot in the air. "I'm goin barefoot tonight! Take _that_, bitches!"

"She's drunk," we all said at the same time.

Gabby managed to belt out, "IT'S A FARM LIFE!" before big buff guys dragged her off the stage.

"Hhhhhello!" I heard someone whisper in my ear. I turned around. A man about thirty was there. He was wearing stained jeans and a T-shirt. He had a Popsicle stick in his mouth.

"Um, can I help you?" I asked.

The man blew air through his teeth, making the Popsicle stick shake. "Name's Fresno, District Six. Won the Games 'bout fifteen years ago. Killed em all with meh spear. What 'bout you, baby girl? What's your story?"

I wondered how Fresno didn't recognize me from the Games, but right when I started to answer him, Mia sighed behind me.

"Honestly, Fresno, do your stylists know what you're wearing? They showed me the designs for your outfit, and it was absolutely _stunning._"

Fresno cracked a smile and shrugged. "Nyah. They tried to force me into their gay outfit, but I told em to fuck off, just like always."

Clove laughed. I rolled my eyes.

"Well, I guess I'll see you later, baby girl," Fresno said, pressing his greasy lips to my cheek.

I must have had a pretty horrified look on my face, because everyone laughed.

…

_Clove_

"Attention!" President Snow's scratchy voice filled the room as he started his speech. _Finally._ We'd been backstage _forever._ He wanted us to make a special appearance or something.

"I hope you're all enjoying the party. I want to introduce to you all of our guests of honor: the victors!" President Snow started calling a bunch of the names of victors who were here. "And last but not least, our 74th Annual Hunger Games victor-_victors._" He corrected himself with clenched teeth. "Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen!"

There was thundering applause as Bitch 1 and Bitch 2 stepped onto the stage.

"Oh, we're not done, yet! Please welcome the head of our medical department, Dr. Samuel!"

Dr. Samuel took the microphone from President Snow and waved to the crowd. "Hey there. Who is a victor of the Games? Someone who survives, right? Everyone assumes there's only _one_ victor. Or, uh, two," he said, gesturing to Katniss and Peeta. "But every year, there are many victors. Especially the year of Finnick Odair's victory! There were_ many _victors that year."

The audience applauded. They heard this story every year, and they loved it.

Another catchy song came on.

"Please welcome our second place winner….Allie Samuel!" Allie walked out, waving her hand like a queen.

"Allie was stabbed a few inches away from her heart," Dr. Samuel explained. "The hovercraft picked her up, thinking she was dead, and when they figured out that she wasn't, they did surgery-a _lot_ of surgery. And here she is, good as new, working for the Capital as Head of Training for the saved tributes!"

Katniss and Peeta's mouths hung open, but they quickly saw that no one else was surprised and started clapping.

"Next we have our third place winner! Claire, come on out!"

Claire walked out, her curls bouncing. "This is Claire. She's our trainer from District 12. She died…well, almost died two hours before Allie. A wildebeest pretended to befriend her, but then threw her off a cliff."

I snickered.

"Lucky for Claire, there was a force field at the bottom of the cliff. It bounced her right back up and into the hovercraft that was picking up Mia, our next tribute."

Mia bounced out from behind the curtain, blowing kisses to the crowd.

"Mia's neck was slit. Not deep enough for her to die, obviously. But it _was_ deep enough for her to lose a lot of blood. So much that she went into a coma. The hovercraft picked her up, gave her blood, stitched up her neck, and she was fine!"

"Our last tributes from Finnick's year are Izabelle Harvbey and Gabby Venshcawz!"

Izzy and Gabby skipped out with their arms linked, Izzy in a strapless chiffon chocolate brown dress. Her dark brown hair was in a French twist, and tiny pearl-drop earrings hung from her ears. Her dark green heels click-clacked against the stage.

"Gabby and Izabelle died at exactly the same time. A giant tsunami hit, knocking their bodies against a tree. The tsunami left as soon as it hit, killing no other tributes. The hovercraft picked these two up, but they were just unconscious. They were in a coma for about a month."

Gabby and Izabelle took a bow and joined Allie, Claire, Mia, and the other victors at the corner of the stage.

"Last but not least, we want to give a warm welcome to….GLIMMER, CATO, MARVEL, AND CLOVE!"

When we walked out on stage, Katniss and Peeta's mouths REALLY fell open this time. I gave them a little wave and smirked. Glimmer snapped her fingers in a Z formation.

Dr. Samuel explained how Cato, Marvel, and Glimmer died. "And Clove," he continued, trying to hold back a laugh."Clove here died because she got hit in the head with a rock."

The victors exploded in hysterics.

"It's not _funny!_" I said, slapping Cato.

"Wha-? What did I do?" he cried as I dragged him backstage.

Glimmer followed us, making a _she's crazy_ sign to the audience.

Marvel grabbed the mic. "Clove has left the building!"

…..

_Glimmer_

After the speech, Cashmere stopped by. She was wearing a long skinny dress made out entirely out of gold sequins. Her blond hair was pin-straight and swung back and forth as she walked.

"Cashmere! I've missed you so much!" I exclaimed, giving my old trainer a hug.

Gloss walked by in a purple and pink tuxedo.

"Oooh, Gloss cleans up good!" I said.

"Oh, don't even try. Gloss is gay."

Clove crosses her arms. "I know," she grumbled.

…..

_Clove_

Ugh. Why did they have to bring up Gloss? It reminded me of my _brother. _Cato tipped up my chin with his thumb. "Hey, come dance with me."

"No," I said, shoving him away.

"Clove." Cato grabbed my shoulders and turned me around to face him. "I want to _fucking_ dance, right. Fucking. _Now._"

"Fine," I smiled as he tugged me out to the dance floor.

As we were dancing, Gabby's friend Cullen came up to me and was like, "Alex. What. If!"

"Alex? There's no Alex here!" I cried, kicking him to the ground and putting my foot on his chest.

I crouched down to meet his eyes. "Do not _ever_ talk to me again, you hear?" I growled.

Cullen nodded quickly and sped away. It felt good to be the boss.

_Glimmer_

"What are you doing here?" Katniss exploded.

"Not just _here,_ why are you _alive?"_ Peeta added.

"We were going to ask you the same question." I replied curtly. "Why don't you just leave? It's obvious no one likes you."

"People _love_ me! I'm their Mockingjay!" Katniss cried, aghast.

Peeta tapped her shoulder. "Babe, come on, it's just a game,"

We all just kinda looked at him. "What? That's a line from that teenage vampire romance movie!" laughed Marvel.

Then we all just kinda looked at _Marvel. _"What? It's a worldwide phenomenon, how could I not know that?" he said.

"Come on, Marvel. Let's leave. These butts are stinking up the area."

….

_Glimmer_

"Okay, everyone, we're gonna slow it down a little. Please welcome Katniss Everdeen!"

Katniss walked up to the piano and sat down. She adjusted the microphone and started to sing.

_Here it's safe, here it's warm, and here the daisies guard you from-_

Katniss abruptly stopped when Clove stormed up to her. Clove pushed her off the piano bench and yelled, "Get over it! SHE'S DEAD!"

Oh, Clove.

**Okay! For those of you who were patient enough to make it all the way down here, thank you! And please! Only one person has given me an idea for a tribute! **** You wouldn't want me to have to stop the story because I don't have enough characters, would you? **** Anyway, thank you for your continuous reviews, especially LovelyAva and citruszen! And if you were wondering what everybody's dresses looked like, here are the links to look at them. I don't own them! They're just some random dresses I found on the Internet with Unofficially Clove's help!**

**Glimmer's: .com/media/resized/short-radiant-white-green-cocktail-dress-n2301-f_**

**Allie's : . **

**Izabelle's : ./_luwTT6BmfX0/R_reMqE7nZI/AAAAAAAAA8Q/Uq_v9hi2KGo/s400/bm+**

**Mia's (pretend it's black): . **

**Gabby's : . **

**I can't remember where I got the rest of them! Review please! Thank you!**


	13. Movie Night Pt 1

**You all know Izzy from my story, right? Well this chapter is dedicated to her dad, who died of cancer on Saturday. **** I cried. A lot.**

Chapter 13: Movie Night Part 1

_Glimmer_

"Glimmer! Come on, it's movie time!" Mia jumped out of the shadows and pulled me into a cozy TV room with a red suede U-shaped couch. Sitting around the couch were Claire, Allie, Gabby, Mia and Clove.

"Heyyyy District One!" Gabby said, bounding over to me. She looked down at my toenails, still silver from the ball. "Ugh, we are SO changing the color of your piggies! Come on!" she tugged me over to the couch, where an array of pedicure utensils lay in a semicircle around her.

"I've got popcorn!" Izabelle sang, striding into the room with a huge (I mean _huge_) bowl of popcorn.

"Ooooooh! I want!" Mia said, grabbing at the popcorn. Then she turned around to look at us. "You want?"

"So what movie are we watching?" Clove asked, flopping onto the couch Indian style.

"Uh, the only GOOD movie here. Our Games!" Claire said, pulling a Navajo blanket around her. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and snapped her fingers in a Z formation.

Gabby laughed as she started to massage some cream into my feet.

"HOW did you get your hair this awesome?" Clove asked, running her hand down Gabby's long, bumpy braid.

We all stared at her. Clove scowled and crossed her arms. "What? Since when am I not allowed to be interested in girly stuff?" She turned back to Gabby. "But, seriously, how did you do this?"

"I think I could figure it out. C'mere," I said, clearing the space on the couch next to me. Clove bounced down next to me.

Izzy dimmed the lights and hit play.

The movie started just like every other Games recording: words flashing across the screen.

_12 districts…_

_1 Capital…_

_24 tributes…_

_ONE WINNER._

Then it cut to the twelve escorts, each word coming from a different one.

"Happy"

"Hunger"

"Games,"

"and"

"may"

"the"

"odds"

"be"

"_ever"_

"in"

"your"

"favor!"

It then showed each tributes name being called. I didn't know most of the names, but I did recognize a few-

"Allie Samuel."

"Mia Fanning."

"Finnick Odair."

"Izabelle Harvbey."

"Gabby Venshcawz."

"Claire Germanotta."

And, of course, since Finnick was the victor that year, it showed him actually walking up to the stage, and his family saying goodbye to him.

They showed snippets of every interview, and Finnick's whole interview.

"Ugh. I remember that day. It was _so_ hot out," Claire sighed, fanning herself as if the heat still existed.

Suddenly we heard a booming noise.

"Why did a cannon go off? No one has even died yet!" Clove asked.

We all looked at Mia, whose face was beat red. "S-sorry," she stammered.

We all burst into laughter as Mia buried her head in Claire's shoulder.

I finger combed Clove's hair as I started to braid her hair. The screen flashed to reveal a picture of four very fat people who I assumed to be Gamemakers.

"Fat people lounge," Gabby muttered, pointing to the screen.

She and I cracked up. "Sssssh!" everyone said.

Gabby ran her finger along the row of polishes in front of her. She selected a light blue one and started to unscrew the top.

The TV showed a beautiful green pasture. In the middle of it was a giant gold horn: the Cornucopia. Off to one side of the Cornucopia was a giant smooth blue lake, its waves lapping against the shore. Twelve tributes were dotted around the lake, and rope bridges stretched from their plates to the short green grass that led to the Cornucopia.

On the other side of the Cornucopia was a field with tall, light green blades of grass swaying in the breeze. The other twelve tributes' plates were in this field.

"Let the 65th annual Hunger Games begin!" A cannon boomed and immediately the sky turned black and clouds rolled across the sky. The lake's calm waves turned into foamy, choppy ones, and the tall grasses started to blow wildly.

The tributes in the lake tried to get safely across the rope bridges, but sharks and other dangerous things were snapping at their heels. A cann

+on boomed immediately as I saw a sandy-haired boy pulled under by a shark with extremely sharp teeth. One other boy saw that happen, and he climbed back onto his plate, where he was immediately blown up.

"Shhh, it's ok," I heard. Claire was comforting Izabelle, who had tears spilling down her cheeks.

"That was her fellow tribute, Crispin," Gabby whispered to me. "He, uh…didn't get to be saved."

You might have thought the tributes in the field were having a better time getting to the Cornucopia, since the only thing in their way was the grass. Wrong. Turns out the grass was that razor-sharp grass, and it waving crazy all over the place. A younger version of Mia stumbled out of the grass, bloody already from the demon grass.

I heard a scream, and the camera swiveled around to show a young boy, probably only twelve, running out of the water. A girl with bulging muscles and a wicked smile followed him out, about to throw a dagger at him.

"Hey, she's like me!" Clove cried.

I snickered. "Yeah, except for the bulging muscles part."

The girl never got the chance to throw the knife before a golden arrow sprouted from the side of her neck. The camera zoomed out to show Claire, her wet bangs plastered across her forehead (wow, she even had bangs back then!) still holding up the bow from which the arrow came from.

The small boy ran over and hugged Claire gratefully. She nodded and jogged away towards the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, a determined look on her face.

But then, from out of the mass of bodies, Finnick came, swinging a trident (woah) back and forth, taking out every person it came in contact with. He swatted away the boy grappling with Gabby for a backpack. Gabby nodded in thanks and they shook hands. They were allies. Gabby gestured to Izabelle and Mia, who were fighting a pair of guys, and it looked like they were losing. Mia had a huge gash on her arm, and Izabelle was holding her stomach, blood soaking her shirt.

Finnick nodded and strode towards them and came up behind their opponents and killed them before they knew what was going on. Finnick pointed to Gabby and then shook Izabelle and Mia's hands. The small group of allies gathered away from the bloody mass of dead bodies and sprinted away into the leafy woods.

"Where's Claire?" Clove asked.

"Oh, I turn up sooner or later," Claire replied mysteriously. "First I gotta kill some more kids."

We turned back to the TV. It sped to the night, where the anthem of Panem was playing and the faces of the dead tributes were flashing across the sky. Among the dead, there was the boy from Two, the girl from Three, the boy from Six, Crispin from Seven, the girl from Nine, and both from Eight and Ten (wow, both tributes taken out on the first day! Losers.).

The screen faded to black for a few seconds, but then revealed the early dawn of the next morning. The first thing that we saw was someone running.

And that person was Allie.

She was panting and kept looking frantically behind her. Around her waist was a skinny belt twisted out of vines, and a small knife and a small canteen hung from it. Allie jumped into a cluster of willow trees and scampered up the trunk. A few moments later a rustling of leaves announced the arrival of someone else. Two someones, actually. Two boys entered the area surrounded by weeping willow branches; one about twelve and quite chubby, and the other a little older, maybe fourteen of fifteen.

The older one was much taller and muscular than the small boy. He had a spear; however, the other one had a shiny silver knife with a six-inch blade that looked like it could really hurt. It didn't look like he knew how to use it, though. He was trembling and trying to shield his face with it. The camera zoomed in on the chubby boy, and I could hear him whispering, "Come, on, Oskar, you can do it!"

Suddenly, his chub bouncing around, Oskar surged forward, sticking the blade out in front of him. The older boy just laughed and stepped to the side, avoiding the knife. He kicked Oskar to the ground. Oskar covered his face and started to cry. And cry. And cry. I mean, that boy _sobbed._ The older boy's face twisted into a crueler smirk and he stepped on the boy's chest harder.

"N-no, p-please d-don't…" Oskar stammered, but it was too late. The older boy stuck his spear right down into Oskar's chest, and Oskar's last plea was cut off by a gurgle of blood. His head nodded to the side and his cannon boomed.

The older boy looked up. "I dedicate that kill to you, Allie."

Allie's pale face, streaked with dirt, peeked out of the curtain of branches. She looked down at the dead boy below. "Hmm," she said thoughtfully. "Nice kill, Draco."

At this point Gabby leaned over and whispered to me, "Draco was the boy from District One. He was Allie's boyfriend. Well, he liked Allie, but Allie only pretended."

Draco picked up Oskar's knife from the ground and wiped the blade clean on his shirt. "Nice blade, you want it?" he asked, throwing it up to Allie. She caught it in her hand, twirling it before putting it in another loop in her belt. She took out her other knife and threw it on the ground. "Here, you can have this."

"But don't you want it?" Draco asked, shaking his head.

"Nah. The blade's dull. Besides, a knife and a spear are good enough for me."

"But…there's only one spear in the arena, and I have it." Draco said, confused.

Allie smiled devilishly. "Not for long," she said, taking the knife out of her belt.

"Wait, Allie, what the hell are you doing?" Draco cried, backing away. "I thought you liked me! We're allies! This isn't fair!"

"Sorry, darling, but all's fair in love in war." Allie said, flicking her knife at him. The knife went right between his neck and right shoulder. Blood spurted from the wound, splattering the shiny silver blade. Allie swung down from the tree and yanked the knife from Draco's neck. He grunted quietly and slumped on the ground, dead. Allie put the knife back in her belt. "Thanks for the spear," she said quietly, scooping it up.

Next to me, Allie sighed and put her hands behind her head. "I loved that kill," she said dreamily.

Back on the TV, Allie walked hesitantly back through the branches and into the clearing. Something jumped down from a tree right in front of her.

"Shit!" she cried, fumbling for her knife.

"Easy, easy," Finnick said. "I'm allies with your allies."

"Okaaaay…" Allie said suspiciously, keeping her hand on her knife.

"Will you relax already?" Finnick cried. "I'm not gonna kill you! Here, look!" he threw his trident to the ground.

Allie slowly took her hand off her belt. "Alright, fine. What do you want?"

"Allies?" he asked, flashing a row of pearly white teeth.

"Hmmm," Allie said playfully, tapping her chin. "Let me look you over…." She circled Finnick slowly.

"Nice hair," she said finally.

Finnick laughed. "That's it?"

"Fine, we're allies," she smiled and shook his hand.

Suddenly a cannon boomed. Finnick and Allie looked up to see a hovercraft drag up a body not too far from where they were.

"The killer's near," Finnick breathed. "Run."

Allie shook her head. "There's no time. We'll have to hide." She climbed back up her tree, Finnick following her.

A few minutes later Claire walked by. Finnick moved in the tree and made the leaves rustle. Claire jumped and pointed her bow at the tree.

"You have ten seconds to slowly come out of that tree before I shoot you out!" she yelled.

Allie and Finnick jumped down, greeted by an arrow pointed at them.

"Drop your weapons."

"Nah, I don't think I will." Finnick said firmly. "Ah, but here's an idea: why don't you drop yours?"

"Now!"

"Jeez, relax," Allie said lazily, dropping her knife and spear. "So you wanna be allies or what?"

They shook hands.

And so they were allies.


	14. Dan?

**This chapter is dedicated to 11-year-old Lindsey, who died of cancer a couple of weeks ago. ****!**

Chapter 14: Movie Night Part 2

_Clove_

With only twelve tributes left, the fighting was really getting intense. Almost every tribute was injured in some way, and disasters in the arena kept happening, like volcanoes and hurricanes and whatnot.

I suddenly felt a painful tug at the back of my head.

"Dammit, Glimmer!" I cried, swiveling around to face her.

Glimmer raised her hands in defense. "Sorry, sorry!"

I turned back to the TV to see Claire and another girl circling each other; Claire with her bow raised, and the other girl holding what looked like a silver stake. It looked like a pretty equal fight; they were well-matched opponents. Claire was bleeding steadily from her lip and upper arm, and her opponent had a dangerous-looking gash in her forehead.

Suddenly Claire's mouth parted in horror and she slowly pointed behind the girl's shoulder.

Stupidly, the girl looked behind her.

"Made ya look!" Before the girl knew what was happening, Claire shot her in the neck.

13 down, 11 to go.

_Glimmer_

After Claire's kill, the screen flashed to show a silver arrow whistling through the trees.

"Uh!" The arrow landed in someone's shoulder…Mia's shoulder.

Mia touched the base of the wound, and her hand came away, sticky with blood. Her face was wrinkled with pain and disbelief as she looked at the person who had shot the arrow.

Claire.

I grabbed the remote from Izzy and paused the TV. "Why would you shoot her? She was your ally!" I cried to Claire.

Claire shoved and folded her arms. "Well, it was getting down to the last tributes, and I wanted to win," she said, as if it should have been obvious.

I shook my head and pressed play.

Onscreen, Mia looked with despair at her shoulder wound. "Claire, what-?"

But Claire had already run off into the woods.

Mia tried to start easing the arrow out of her shoulder, but blood flowed out and she gasped in pain.

Offscreen, Mia showed off her shoulder. "OH ya! Still got the scar, baby! WOO!"

After giving Mia a weird look, we turned our heads back to the TV.

Mia had found some bright green moss and pressed it to the area around the arrow, probably hoping to staunch the flow of blood. She picked up her knife and sawed off the part of the arrow protruding from her skin, leaving only a little arrow stub. She ran back into the forest.

_Clove_

Tributes kept being killed, until there was only Finnick, Allie, Claire, Mia, Gabby, Izzy, and two others left.

The screen showed Gabby, Izzy, and Allie fighting two burly guys who looked about eighteen, while Allie Izzy and Gabby were only thirteen. And they were losing. Big time.

Gabby looked uncertainly at the sky, which was turning blacker and more threatening every second. Clouds were being thrown across the sky in all different ways, and rain was slanting down on the fighting tributes. Suddenly Gabby lunged forward and pushed one of the boys down and jumped on his stomach. Allie threw her the spear, and Gabby caught it and crouched down to look the boy in his face. He raised his right fist behind Gabby and raked his dagger along her spine. A faint look of pain crossed her face, but she kept her cruel smile and, whispering, "Buh bye, darling," she stabbed him in the face. She stood up and, throwing her head to the angry sky, laughed.

Now that half of their opponent was gone, the three continued to grapple with the other boy, whose fury was apparent over the loss of his ally. He was gaining on Izabelle, backing her up to a tree. Izzy did a very daring, very unexpected, very awesome move. Izzy did a back flip and landed neatly on her feet on the lowest branch. The boy followed her into the tree, but was very unsteady on the thin branch. Izabelle, however, was very surefooted, living in District Seven, the tree district. Gripping her axe tightly, she swung it and cleanly chopped of his head. She grabbed it before it could fall. Gabby and Allie scattered as the boy's buff body fell towards them. Izzy lifted up the dismembered head and grinned.

_Glimmer_

"Ok, you're done," Gabby said, plopping onto the couch after she finished my pedicure.

I stopped mid-braid to wiggle my toes. Gabby had painted them a soft blue, with delicate swirls of silver and white on each big toe. It was by far the best pedicure I'd ever gotten, better than any stylist had given me.

"Thanks!" I said, hugging Gabby.

"SHH!" everyone cried. We turned back to the screen.

Allie, Gabby, and Izzy were celebrating after their kills. No one was paying attention to the worsening weather. At the last minute Allie screamed as a forty foot wave descended on them, broken trees and bushes tangled in its roaring water. Trying to protect themselves, the girls started to run behind a huge, fat tree. Only Allie made it, though. Izzy and Gabby were smashed against the front of the tree, their heads violently jerking back and hitting the hard bark.

As soon as two cannons boomed, the sky turned bright and blue again, the wind stopped howling and turned back to a soft breeze, and the wave evened until the arena was up to its knees in water. Much quicker than it should have, the water drained into the ground.

Allie emerged from behind the tree, her clothes soaked and brown hair dripping fat droplets of water.

"NOOOO!" she howled to the sky as she saw Izzy's and Gabby's broken bodies before her.

_Glimmer_

The screen flashed to a shot of Mia running. She stopped at a tall figure standing by a tree, trident in hand.

"Finnick!" she gasped in relief. "You've gotta help me! Claire-"

Finnick tackled her and put the point of his trident to her neck. "Sorry, Mia, but there's no such thing as allies when only those allies are left."

There was a wet ripping sound as he yanked the arrow out of her shoulder.

Mia screamed, but it was cut off by Finnick's trident slitting her neck.

When her cannon boomed, Finnick walked away, leaving Mia's mouth in mid-scream and her neck a bloody mess.

Offscreen, Mia self-consciously touched the jagged scar across her neck.

_Clove_

Onscreen, Claire was running. She held up her bow, and she kept frantically looking behind her. Her hair was a mess. Her blonde hair was in a droopy ponytail, and it was limp and soaking wet, thanks to the once-again rainy weather. Mud was streaked across her forehead, and various cuts and bruises made their way up her arms.

She stopped suddenly, her way cut off by a mass of tall, thorny plants that curled up to the blackening sky. Claire turned around, but was cut off yet again by a pack of wildebeests. One, however, stepped forward from the pack and looked at Claire. Then it turned around and walked backward, looking back at Claire as if beckoning her to follow. It stopped beside her, and Claire climbed aboard its back.

Suddenly it began to run. Faster, faster than any regular animal. This wildebeest was a mutt; there was no way it would've been able to run that fast on its own.

It stopped at a cliff and bucked Claire right off the edge.

_Glimmer_

This was it. The final two. The final countdown.

_Clove_

The screen turned black with the color of night. Faces flashed across the sky as Allie slept, well-protected, concealed under a bed of leaves under a weeping willow tree with braches so long that they had trains that fanned out across the ground for a few feet.

_Glimmer_

Apparently Finnick wasn't very worried about Allie seeing smoke from a fire, because there he sat quietly, his head in his hands, next to an orange fire with steady black and grey smoke evolving from it.

Something small landed next to Finnick's knee. It was a white and silver parachute.

He had a sponsor.

_Clove_

Finnick opened the parachute, only to find a small piece of curling parchment. The camera zoomed in on the message, which was only four short words long:

_She weeps under willows._

_Glimmer_

We saw Finnick stalking through the night, trident raised. _She weeps under willows,_ that must've meant weeping willows, because that's where Finnick stopped. He spread apart the long curtains of branches that separated him from winning.

_Clove_

Finnick crept quietly through the grass, and gently moved aside a couple of the leaves he covered Allie's chest. He threw up his arm and buried his trident in her chest.

Many things happened at once. A cannon boomed, the dark sky turned to light, confetti covered the sky, and a booming voice rang throughout the arena:

"Congratulations to Finnick Odair, the winner of the Sixty-fifth Hunger Games!"

_Clove_

As we were all getting up from watching the Games, Cato and Marvel came in wondering what we were doing. Before we could answer, a gorgeous tall blonde guy strode into the room. He was wearing a lavender long sleeved dress shirt with a blue plaid tie. His blonde hair looked soft as silk, and he was chewing a wad of gum in his mouth. He crouched next to Glimmer, who was on the floor cleaning up the nail polish.

"Hey, babe," he said, the gum giving him a sexy lisp.

"Dan!" Glimmer cried gleefully, jumping into his arms and giving him a hug.

"Dan?" Cato said uncertainly.

"_Dan?"_ I said with part disgust, part admiration.

Marvel, however, ran his hands through his hair and placed them on his temples. "Oh, great, Dan."


	15. Glimmer Blows It

**Hi, everyone! Sorry for the late update. I just wanted to clear something up. In my last chapter, when I wrote "Marvel ran his hands through his hair," he was running his hands through his OWN hair, not Dan's. And he said" OH, great, Dan," sarcastically. Okay! So please enjoy this chapter! OH! And I've thought of a new bribe to get you to give me an idea for a tribute: If you give me a tribute, you will get a WHOLE CHAPTER dedicated to you! PLEASE! :D OH, and, uh, enjoy the chapter, too! :D And you now, reviews are pretty cool, too!**

_Glimmer_

"Dan! I can't believe you're here!" I exclaimed, hugging him. Cato and Clove looked confused. Marvel looked jealous. I ignored him.

"Everybody! This is Dan, from District One!" I said excitedly. "He was my boyfriend, until he died. In the Games! But he's here! YAYYYYY!" I jauntily jumped around in a circle.

"Do _all_ of her boyfriends get reaped for the Games?" Clove whispered to Cato.

I introduced Cato and Clove. Dan strode over to Marvel, and kneeled down to his eye level, examining Marvel's face.

"And who's this little walnut?" Dan said playfully.

"_I'm_ Glimmer's boyfriend, Marvel," Marvel said defensively.

"Aw, so cute," Dan said, pinching Marvel's cheeks. Marvel scowled. I ignored him again.

"Hey, I have a great idea!" I said. "Why don't you join us for dinner? Marvel has a comunicuff, I bet he can sneak us out of here no problem and we could go to a decent Capitol restaurant!"

"That's a _terrible_ idea!" Marvel cried, throwing up his hands.

"Oh, lighten up, Marvel, it's just one night," Clove said.

_Glimmer_

I was putting the finishing touches on my outfit when Marvel walked into my dressing room.

"Hey!" I said brightly, kissing him on the cheek. That seemed to brighten him up a bit.

I fastened a barrette in my straightened blonde hair and turned to Marvel. "Isn't it great that Dan's back?"

"Oh. Ya, sure," Marvel said. There goes the brightness again.

"Alright, let's go!" I said, grabbing my clutch and walking away.

"Wait," Marvel said, catching my wrist. "I wanted to give you something to wear tonight." He held out a thin gold charm bracelet with only two charms: a diamond encrusted _G _and a diamond encrusted _M._

"You know, for Glimmer and Marvel," Marvel said, seeing me look at the charms. "I thought it would match your outfit."

I was wearing dark washed skinny jeans with hints of silver, a gold-colored off the shoulder goddess tunic (because everyone knows clashing metals is in these days), and silver strappy stilettos.

"Marvel, thank you, it's beautiful!" I gushed. It really was. And Marvel's right, it would match my outfit. Marvel beamed.

"But," he frowned. "Don't you think Dan would feel a little left out seeing me wearing something from you?"

Marvel glared at me. "No, considering I _am _your boyfriend!"

"I just mean, reminding him that I have a boyfriend, and Clove has Cato, but he doesn't have anyone."

Marvel sighed. "You know what, Glimmer? Fine. I don't care. Whatever you want. I'm used to it, you know, doing whatever you want."

"Marvel, I-"

"See you at dinner." He walked out and slammed the door behind him.

**Sorry for the short chapter! Don't worry, a new one will be up soon! Super soon! I hoped you liked it, Mia. Because you know, EVERYONCE knows that clashing metals is SO IN.**


	16. Fight!

**Hi everyone! I'm having a writing party with UnofficiallyClove! We're having a pretty dandy time! So anyway, this chapter is dedicated to LovelyAva, citruszen, and FeelsLikeStormingACastle, my best reviewers. Thanks, guys! **** OH! And I do not own the lyrics to Circle the Drain! And let's try to get bunches of reviews for this chapter! UnofficiallyClove has 47, I have 43, and she has more chapters than me! D: HELP!**

Chapter 16

_Clove_

"Clove! What the hell are you wearing?" Glimmer cried when Cato and I walked into the room.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking at my faded jeans and T-shirt.

Glimmer threw her hands up in the air. "I told you to dress nice! We're going to a _French_ restaurant!"

Cato and I looked at each other, confused. _French? _What the hell was _that? _Glimmer rolled her eyes, grabbed my hand, and dragged me down the hall to my room. She slammed open my closet and threw some clothes at me. She shoved me into the bathroom and I put the outfit on. It was a pair of super dark stretchy jeans, black suede knee-high boots and a purple tank top with a metallic gold jacket.

Glimmer walked in and straightened my hair and draped some long silver chains around my neck (I guess clashing metals is in these days). She quickly dusted some bronzer and mascara on my face, handed me a clutch that matched my jacket, and shoved me out the door.

As Glimmer led me down the hall, I saw Cato coming out of his room, too. It looked like Marvel gave him a makeover, too.

We stood in an awkward circle in the lobby for about fifteen minutes. Marvel, looking very irritated, exclaimed, "I AM NOT WAITING ONE MORE MINUTE FOR THAT WORTHLESS BASTARD!"

Glimmer looked aghast. "Dan? He's meeting us at the restaurant, I told you that before we left!"

Marvel just stared at her. "_No,_ you didn't!" he cried.

"Oh! Sorry, I thought I did. Well, go on, do your thing!" Glimmer said to Marvel.

Marvel looked confused. "What? What do you mean my _thing?"_

"Get rid of the guard!" Glimmer said, _duh,_ dripping from every word.

"What do you want me to do?" Marvel asked sarcastically. "Knock him out?"

Glimmer shrugged. "Actually, yeah, that would be perfect."

Marvel shook his head. "Glimmer_ no._ I could lose my comunicuff!"

Glimmer pouted. "Pwease?"

"No!"

"Come on, Marvel, just one punch'll do it!" I encouraged him.

"Fine, then why don't _you_ do it?" he challenged me.

I shrugged. "Can't. One more strike and I'm back in that stupid crazy house."

"Cato?"

Cato backed up. "Sorry, man. You know I would, but I have to take Clove's side on this. I can't get in any more trouble, either."

Marvel crossed his arms and glared at Cato. "What trouble have _you _gotten in?"

Cato shifted from foot to foot. "Dr. Samuel caught me stealing morphling for Clove,"

"Clove! You told me you stopped taking that!" Glimmer cried.

I shrugged. "I did stop! But then I started again."

Suddenly Glimmer jumped onto a table and pointed a finger at me and broke out in song:

_You fall asleep during training, cuz the morphling you take is more your forte!_

_ I'm not stickin around to watch you go down! _

_Wanna be your fellow tribute, not your fuckin mother! Can't be your savior, I don't have the power!_

_I'm not gonna stay and watch you circle the drain, watch you circle the drain, watch you circle the drain!_

She jumped down and smoothed her hair down and started back in the conversation as if nothing had happened, while as the rest of us just stared at her.

Marvel turned on Glimmer now. "Well? You're the one who put this all together! Why don't you do it?"

Glimmer held up her fingernails. "Uh, manicure?"

"Come _on,_ don't be such a baby!" I said, laughing and nudging Marvel with my elbow.

He turned around, fists clenched, with a furious look on his face. "If you don't shut your little ass up _right this second,_ I will _personally_ make sure you get to spend at least a _week_ under Dr. Samuel's care." He said, raising a fist towards my face.

"Hey, back off!" Cato said, shoving him.

"Don't _touch _me!" Marvel shouted, shoving back.

"Marvel!" Glimmer cried, placing a hand on his arm. He shrugged it off and punched Cato in the mouth with a force I had never seen him muster before.

I heard a crack, and Cato staggered back, one hand holding his jaw.

Marvel kept walking towards him, trembling with anger. He raised his fist, but Cato was ready this time. He punched Marvel in the gut, hard, and while Marvel was doubled over, Cato curled his ankle around and took Marvel out at the knees. Marvel snaked his arm around and took Cato out at the knees, too. Marvel rolled out of Cato's way and jumped back up, kicking Cato in the back.

"Clove! Do something!" Glimmer yelled at me.

"Why don't you? Your boyfriend started it!" I yelled back at her.

She held up her hand again. "MANICURE!"

I rolled my eyes and tried to pull Cato away from Marvel, which was hard, because Cato kept reaching forward to punch Marvel.

Cato wrenched himself from my grasp and pushed me. I fell on my butt. I felt a sudden surge of anger towards him. It didn't hurt, it was just really embarrassing. I jumped back up and slapped Cato hard across the face. The sound of my hand colliding with his face was so sharp that even Marvel stopped punching Cato for a second.

Cato touched his cheek, and his hand came back with blood on it, thanks to the sharp rings I wore on two of my fingers. While he was occupied, Marvel took the opportunity to step forward and sent his fist flying towards Cato's face. It never got there, though. Cato caught Marvel's arm and twisted it. I heard the most sickening crack as Marvel's arm fell at an unnatural angle.

"Marvel!" Glimmer cried, rushing in front of him. She sent a kick in Cato's direction, and I heard yet _another_ crack as her the tip of her stiletto collided with one of his ribs.

Finally, some Capitol muscle guy came hurrying up with Dr. Samuel. They broke up the fight, and Dr. Samuel checked Cato over.

"He's got some broken ribs," he muttered. "Come with me, we'll get those fixed up. Oh, and Marvel-" but Marvel was already storming off to the door marked STAIRS. Wonder why he didn't take the elevator. Oh, well.

"I'll be up in a second, Marvel," Glimmer called after him.

"Don't bother!" Marvel shouted, slamming the door with his good arm so hard that the glass in the little window shattered.

With Marvel gone and Cato with Dr. Samuel, it just left Glimmer and me standing alone in the lobby.

Glimmer pulled a small little silver cell phone out of her pocket and flipped it open. "Dan?" She said, pressing it against her ear. "I think we're gonna have to reschedule dinner tonight."


	17. Marvelous

**This chapter is dedicated to Mia. And let me just say: you're welcome. :D**

Chapter Seventeen

_Glimmer_

Walking down one of the many hallways in our building, I checked the little phone I had in my pocket lately. I sighed. No messages. Again. Marvel and I hadn't spoken once to each other since the fight last week. After I had canceled our dinner with Dan, Clove had pushed me into my room, slapped me, and told me how insanely stupid again. As if she was any smarter. Well, I was playing my part well- my strategy for the Games had been to play a sexy airhead. And man, did it work. Cashmere said sponsors were lined up down the block-most of them being of the male gender between ages 15-45. I shuddered.

I turned the corner and was greeted by angry music and the clinking of weights. I stuck my head into the room it was coming from and almost started hyperventilating at the gorgeous sight that stood before me.

Marvel, his back to me, was lifting weights, the muscles rippling under the skin of his shirtless arms. Beads of sweat shined on his skin, and his blonde hair swept to the side of his forehead damp with sweat.I stepped all the way into the room. Marvel, facing a mirror, saw me and almost dropped a barbell on his foot.

"Oh! Glimmer. It's you," he said, reaching for his white T-shirt that was hastily thrown to the floor. I waved my hand dismissively.

"Nah," I said playfully, kicking it under the table.

He smiled, showing a bit of the old Marvel in his eyes.

"So?" I said, batting my eyelashes. "Why haven't you called me?

His eyes hardened again and he averted his eyes as he reached under the table and pulled on his shirt.

"Here's the thing, Glimmer," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at me. "How would you like it if Frille suddenly just showed up unannounced?"

"Frille? Who-Oh." Frille. Marvel's overly blonde, overly perky ex-girlfriend. I crossed my arms and looked away. "I heard she had lice."

"Oh, come _on, _Glimmer. She's your _sister."_

Oh ya. She's also my twin sister. Well, my _ex-_sister…

"Ex! Ex-sister!" I protested.

Marvel sighed. "Glimmer."

"What?" I protested, shifting my weight on to my other foot. "We disowned each other. You want to see the papers?"

"That's not the point, Glimmer. She's my ex-girlfriend-"

"Thanks for reminding me!"

"-and you would be mad if she just showed up, wouldn't you? Well, that's how I felt when Dan turned out to be alive!"

I looked up at him. "Really?"

"Yeah," He looked me in the eyes, his sparkling blue eyes staring straight through me. He brushed a lock of hair from my eyes. "And I thought that any moment, he was just going to take you away from me."

I opened my arms for a hug, and I relaxed for the first time in a week as I felt his muscular arms tighten around me.

"Well you know you shouldn't worry about that stuff," I mumbled against his chest. "You know I could never leave you; we've been through too much."

He rested his chin on my head and kissed my hair. "Did I ever tell you that Marvel isn't my real first name?"

I pulled back. "No. What is it?"

He pulled me in for another hug. "Mark."


	18. Happy Birthday, Clove!

**Hi, everybody! I want to say sorry for my previous chapters; I know they've been too short, so I'm going to try to make sure that each of my chapters are longer!**

Chapter Eighteen

_Clove_

"CLOVE!" I woke up to something jumping on me.

"AH!" I sat straight up in bed. Glimmer had jumped on me, a goofy smile on her face.

"What?" I asked, yawning. "It's like the butt crack of dawn!"

Glimmer shook her head. "It's actually almost noon. I just woke up, too. Cashmere told me to get you; apparently we have a bunch to do today."

That's when I noticed the inability to move my leg, thanks to Glimmer's butt. "Well then." I said. "Could you please get off of me."

"Oh ya, sorry," Glimmer said. She got off, purposefully twisting my leg the wrong way.

"Ow!" I yelped.

Glimmer smirked at me. "Boyd up, Clove, jorey morey."

_Boyd…what?_ Whatever.

After showering, I started towards the elevator that would take me to breakfast. As the gold elevator doors opened, I was surprised to see Cato standing there, a strained look on his face. I stepped in the car next to him.

"Hey." I said. No answer. "HEY." I said louder. He looked at me, as if noticing me for the first time.

"Oh," he said tensely. "Hey."

"What's up? I haven't seen you since the fight. How's your jaw?"

"Fine. Just bruised."

"And your ribs?"

"They're fine. Got them fixed up in about two hours." He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and looking at me. "So did you hear? We have a new trainer….or something. Dr. Samuel didn't give me many details; he just said there's a new Capital attendant coming to work here. We have to go downstairs and meet her. They sent me up to get you."

"Glimmer was already up here."

"Well, apparently you were taking too long."

"So what's with you? You look like you want to kill something."

"I'm just tired. I went to the gym this morning-worked out pretty hard."

"So? What's the problem? You love going to the gym!" I asked.

"Marvel was there." Cato hissed.

"Ohhhhh." I said. "I see." Ever since the fight, things between Cato and Marvel had been…tense. "Well, I talked to Glimmer, and Marvel said you were just defending me, and that he would do the same for Glimmer. He's forgetting the whole thing, and _you_ should too." I said, poking him in the side.

Cato cracked a smile. He put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. He leaned his cheek on my head. I looked up at him.

"What's this? I've never seen the romantic Cato before!"

Cato laughed aloud as the elevator doors opened. We walked into the huge lounge that made up the basement of the building. There was a whole crowd of people waiting for us: Glimmer, Marvel, Cashmere, Gloss, Johnny (holding Gloss's hand, ugh), Enobaria, Brutus, Allie, Mia, Claire, Gabby, Izzy, Dr. Samuel, and someone else-I couldn't tell if it was a girl or a boy, but it looked fat.

As we started to walk towards the group, Mia met us halfway. Her face was grim.

"What?" I asked her.

"Fucking fatty," she said under her breath, shaking her head. "Not you," she said hurriedly, seeing my shocked face. "Come on." She led us toward the group. Mia wasn't the only one who looked annoyed. The cause of everyone's annoyance was apparent when a certain someone pushed their way through everyone.

She was pudgy, for one thing. _Very_ pudgy. Thick, curly brown hair exploded from her head, and she was wearing heavy black earrings that pulled her on her ears so much it looked like her earlobes were ten times longer than they already were. The tank top she was wearing exposed her three armpits, and on that tank top was a huge button that said, "HEY! I! CARE!" Her face wasn't _too_ unattractive, though…she had nice….skin.

"HI!" she said _way_ too loudly, shoving her large arm in Cato's and my faces. "I'm Courtney!"

She grabbed my hand and shook it, much to my distress, and then offered it to Cato, who took it and shook it with just his fingertips. "Courtneeeyyyy," he said, scrutinizing her with mock interest. Glimmer snickered behind her palm.

Courtney beamed, her smile pushing her voluminous cheeks up to her eyes. "Ya, but you can call me Gip. It can be like my special trainer nickname!" I rolled my eyes.

Dr. Samuel cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him. Especially Courtney. She swiveled her head and jutted her head forward, staring at him. She fluttered here eyelashes at him with a stupid smile on her face. Allie stepped forward and placed her hand protectively on Dr. Samuel's arm.

"Uh, anyway," he said uncomfortably. "Please welcome Courtney…I mean Gip. She will be our new assistant-trainer-in-training."

"What?" Glimmer laughed. "That doesn't make any sense!"

"Ya it does," Marvel said. "It means she's training to be a trainer."

"Ok!" Gip clapped her hands together. "I like to do my training in age groups, so can we please have the eighteens over here," she pointed to one side of her, and Cato walked over there with a scowl on his face. "and the seventeens on this side!" She pointed to her other side. Glimmer, Marvel, and I walked reluctantly towards her, but she caught my shoulder and pulled me back. "Whoopsee do, Clove! You're not seventeen!"

I put my hands on my hips. "Uh, _ya, _I am, you fatass."

A clipboard seemed to appear in Gip's hands. "Oh, no you're not! According to this clipboard, you are eighteen today! It's the twenty-fourth of the third month!"

"Oh, hell, it _is_ my birthday." I said dully. Glimmer's eyes lit up at the word "birthday."

"Really? It' s Clove's birthday today?" she asked eagerly.

I nodded.

"Well why didn't you tell me? I could've had a whole party planned out by now! And your present!" She smacked her forehead. "Holy crap, your present! I've got to go get you a present!" She turned towards the elevator.

"Wait, Glimmer-" I tried to protest, but it was to late. I could already see the elevator going up. "Shit." I dropped my arms to my side. "I don't want a party. Or a present."

"Hey, Clove, remember what I got you last year? Wait, what did I get you last year? I remember it was something TOTALLY badass." Said Cato.

I scoffed. "Please, Cato, the only thing you ever gave me was a black eye."

"What? That is so not true, I-oh, wait. That _is _the only thing I gave you! A new one every year!" Cato laughed.

I rolled my eyes.

Gip tried to get our attention again. "Oh, ok, Glimmer's gone, but that's only a minor setback, right? Now, if you would just follow me-"

I yawned dramatically. "Eh, no thanks."

"But-"

"Me either," said Marvel, inspecting his bicep. "I've got a meeting with Mr. Muscle here."

"Cato?"

"No, I'm too busy."

"With what?"

"Crapping my pants."

Marvel and I cracked up. Gip wrinkled her brow and frowned. "But you have to come and train!"

"Bye!" I laughed, waving behind my back as we walked away from her.

_Glimmer_

"Ok, sounds fine. Great! I'll see you at two," I said into my phone. I snapped it shut and opened the door to my room. I had just gotten off the phone with Swashbuckle, the best party planner in the Capital. I always called him in District One to plan parties. Now, I know what you're thinking: Someone from the Capital working for someone in a district? Scandalous. But. That rule includes the _other_ districts. The _Career_ districts, however, is a whole other story. District One makes luxury items for the Capital, so naturally we're their favorites. Anyway, Swashbuckle's office was close, so I decided to give him a call. And I didn't have much time until I had to meet him. I went into my closet and threw on faded blue jeans, a pink velour sweatshirt, knee-high black suede boots, and put my hair up into a high ponytail.

Swashbuckle was already in the lobby of the building when I showed up. "Glimmah!" he greeted me, with his quirky combination of the Capital accent and some other I didn't recognize.

"Swashbuckle! I've missed you!" We gave each other air hugs and kisses, and then I got down to business.

"Ok, Swashbuckle. I called you in because it's my friend Clove's eighteenth birthday. She was in the Games with me. You remember her?"

Swashbuckle messed up his face for a second, thinking. Suddenly his face lit up. "Oh! Clove..is that the girl who got hit in the head with a rock?"

I nodded.

"Oh! Oh, that was quite funny!" Swashbuckle said, laughing. "You had such a more elegant death, Glimmah," he complimented me.

"Well, thank you. I try," I said, smiling.

"So what kinds of things were you planning for this party?" Swashbuckle asked me, whipping out a clipboard.

"Well," I began. "Clove isn't really all that into parties, and she probably wants to kill me right now for throwing her one, so we're going to have to make it seem like it's not a _total_ party. She really likes bacon, so I think our main course should be something porky. And for activities, maybe a bunch of sporty stuff, like maybe we could recreate the training room for before the Games, except make it bigger and better."

Swashbuckle was nodding and writing it all down on his clipboard. He looked up at me and smiled. "Ok, Glimmah, I think I have some good ideas. Give me two hours to prepare a presentation and then you can tell me what you think!"

_Glimmer_

Exactly two hours later, Swashbuckle called me into the huge conference room I had reserved for us. I settled down on the beige couch and sipped the fizzy drink that one of his assistants had given me.

"Ok, here we go," Swashbuckle began, clicking through a slideshow. "I was thinking we could have a couple pigs roasting on a spit for the main course, and then just a bunch of other Capitol crap for the sides." Seeing my smile of approval, he began to tell me the rest of his plans, and by the sounds of his plans, Clove better sure as hell love me for this.

_Clove_

Well, it's been a pretty crappy birthday so far. First with Courtney, then all this party crap. I tried to go train after meeting Courtney, but a bunch of muscle men were guarding the door, telling me I couldn't go in because a party was being set up. Honestly, I don't know why they're using the training room for the party, as opposed to a huge ballroom or something. I guess maybe because the training room is way bigger than pretty much three of the ballrooms together. But I don't know why they would need that much space. How many people could be coming?

Well, I got my answer when I walked to my bedroom door greeted by a throng of people trying to get in.

"Um, excuse me? What are you hellhounds doing up here?" I snapped.

A woman with a thin face and a huge feathered hat turned from the crowd. "We're here for Clove Tremain's birthday party. We were all promised rooms to stay in until the event, and the attendant said to just go and find one, and this is the penthouse floor; all the rooms are huge! Where are you staying?"

I crossed my arms and glared at her. "Uh, _I'm_ Clove Tremain, idiot. This is _my_ room. And I don't know what attendant you talked to, but nobody's supposed to be up here. This side of the building is for the saved tributes. They are _not_ guest rooms. So get. The. Hell. OUT OF HERE!" I yelled. The people ignored me. Then I pulled out my knife and screamed, "I SWEAR, IF YOU BASTARDS DON'T GET OUT OF THIS HALLWAY RIGHT NOW, I WILL TIE YOU EACH TO A TREE AND PERSONALLY RIP YOUR THROATS OUT WITH MY KNIFE!" That got them going. When they were gone, I smiled and went into my room.

_Glimmer_

I ran around the party room, making sure everything was in place. It was. Forty fat pigs were slowly turning on spits, drops of fat dripping and sizzling onto the floor. A huge twenty-two layer cake covered three long tables, each layer a different flavor of cake. The flame archers were in place at each corner of the room, and scenes from our Games were playing on the walls, starring Cato, Marvel, myself, and, of course, Clove. On the ceiling, the words _Happy birthday, Clove!_ were spinning around, changing colors and fonts. The guests were also ready, milling around and talking among themselves. They had originally all brought gowns and suits for the party, but since that just didn't fit the theme, Swashbuckle and I had called in every stylist in the Capitol to design each guest a sporty party outfit and an accessory. I was in awesome patterned knee socks, super short hot-pink shorts, and a white exercise tank top with the words _District One_ on the top left corner and _Darlington_ across the back. Both were written in rhinestones, of course. Laphamah had made my hair extra curly and put it into a messy twist at the back of my head. She had also taken sparkly silver liquid eyeliner and curved little skinny lines from the corners of my eyes. She had called them my "cat eyes." I was carrying a white volleyball under my arm.

Marvel and Cato walked up to me in their outfits. Marvel was wearing flip-flops, dark camouflage cargo shorts, a baggy white tank top, with one of those brown thin short-sleeved jacket things guys always wear. I wasn't exactly sure if it was sporty, but he looked pretty amazing.

Cato was wearing swim trunks with a white cotton shirt buttoned up only to the middle of his stomach, leaving his muscular chest totally bare. He was barefoot. "Hey, have you seen Clove? I'm supposed to have a dance or something with her." He said.

I shook my head. "I'm about to go get her right now. Be right back! " I chirped, bouncing my volleyball.

I let myself into Clove's room, where she was standing on a pedestal surrounded by Luke and Cilla sticking and taking out pins from Clove's moss-green tank top.  
She looked at me. "Glimmer, what the hell is all this?"

"We're going to a party," I stated simply.

Clove sighed. "Great. First I have to deal with a birthday party, and now you're taking me to a whole new one?"

I chuckled. "How do you know this isn't your party?"

She rolled her eyes. "I _wish_ this was going to be my party. I would never be lucky enough to wear this. Knowing you, I'll be put in some kind of God-forsaken ball gown."

I just smiled and looked at Cilla and Luke. They were also dressed in sporty clothes. "Are you guys done yet?" I asked. "The party will start soon!"

"One second, annnnnnd…done!" Cilla pulled the last pin out of Clove's shirt with a flourish and gave Clove to step off the pedestal.

Cilla and Luke had put Clove in a moss-green tank top, white shorts the same as mine, minus the sparkles, and her dark brown hair and been trimmed and draped over her shoulder in a side braid. She jogged up and down, testing out her bouncy white tennis shoes. She was carrying a moss-green tennis racket that matched her shirt.

"You look great! Let's go!" I said, taking her hand and pulling her down to the party.

_Clove_

I didn't know what the hell Glimmer was planning, but actually got kind of exciting as we neared the big double doors that opened to the training room.. Any party with this kind of dress code _has_ to be fun. Maybe we were going to a big sports match or something. Glimmer had given me hints that this was _my_ party, but there's no way she would have planned it in one day, let alone let me wear something as casual this to it.

As Glimmer opened the doors, Dr. Samuel's voice pounded throughout the room, "Please give a warm welcome to our guest of honor, Clove Tremain! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CLOVE!" The crowd screamed, echoing him.

Holy. Shit. I was _not_ expecting this _at all._ I didn't even think this was my party! But, apparently it was, proof of it written all over the ceiling! Instead of fancy clothes, like I had expected, the guests-which there were probably about 500-were all dressed similarly to Glimmer and me. I walked into the crowd, star struck, and almost bumped into Cato, who appeared right in front of me, offering me his hand. I took it, searching for Glimmer, but she had melted back into the huge crowd. Suddenly Cato spun me out so far I shot from his hands and into a trampoline that had been angles upward. I was bounced into the air and was caught by a trapeze artist hanging upside down. He swung, and then threw me to his partner, who flipped me down into a huge net that had been stretched right below them. In the corner of the net was a small pile of wrapped presents.

"Clove." Cato's voice dragged from a hidden microphone. "Happy birthday! Everybody wanted to see you open your presents, so I thought-"

"Cato!" another voice said into the microphone,

"I-uh, mean _Glimmer_ thought it would be a good idea for you to open them right there were everybody could see you!"

"Um, okay." I said, but I doubted anybody could hear me over the din of the guests. I stepped gingerly, expecting a holey net, but while Cato was talking, the net had somehow turned into a solid transparent mat that made me feel like I was walking on air-literally. I guess you could never underestimate the Capitol! Or Glimmer. You can't underestimate Glimmer.

I opened my presents. From Mia, there was a brand-new dagger made entirely out of silver, an exact replica of the knife I had used to cut Katniss in the Games. I loved that knife, but this one was _amazing!_ It had an inscription on the handle, _Happy birthday, Clove. Maybe you can get some good cuts in Katniss with this thing. __ ~Mia_

"THANK YOU, MIA!" I shouted.

I opened the rest of my presents. From Gabby, there were some leather gloves that were perfect for grabbing rough branches while you're climbing trees. They were light brown and thin, easy to wear and carry around. Definitely not what you would expect climbing gloves would be like. Well, like I said, you can never underestimate the Capitol!

From Izzy, there was an axe. I'd had a couple of training sessions with her, and had really started to fathom the idea of being able to swing an axe and cut a person's head cleanly off. Of course, I would _never_ use this tactic with Katniss-she deserves a slow, painful death.

A bow, a sheath of arrows, and target came from Claire. The target was especially awesome: instead of the standard red and white rings, there was a picture of Katniss for me to shoot at. Ah, I love my trainers.

Dr. Samuel and Allie got me a punching bag. The card said it was an 'anger management' punching bar. Uh, is it just me or were they implying something?

The stylists made me a bunch of new outfits. My favorite one was a hunting outfit composed of brown leather boots, light brown leggings, a green hunting shirt much like the color of shirt I was wearing now, and a brown belt to hold my knives.

All I got from Marvel was a card that said, _Happy Birthday. You're lucky I haven't killed you yet._ I laughed. Marvel and I were at each other's throats during the Games, but since we'd been back here, things have gotten better. Of course, it's an unspoken rule that we pretend to act maliciously towards each other. It's fun, and it's for show. To hell with chivalry.

Cato had gotten me a shiny new scalping tool. On his card he wrote _Have fun with this. Just don't use it on me._ I smiled, recalling the memory when I had tried to scalp Cato in the hospital. I started to put the box to the side, but Cato's voice yelling in the microphone made me pull it back.

"Look deeper in the side of the box!" he cried.

I looked into the white box, and since I didn't see any apparent thing, I ran my hand along each side of the box until one of my fingers found a tiny seam hidden in the thick black satin. I ripped it open with my fingernail and I don't know how it was possible, but Cato had managed to fit a teeny, tiny, black velvet jewelry box inside the side of the box. No wonder the box and still felt heavy after I had taken out the scalper! I popped open the lift of the box and pulled out a shimmering silver charm bracelet that had been folded up inside that tiny box. And hanging on the bracelet, a half an inch apart, were little silver replicas I'd had during the Games. And there, studded in tiny little sparkling black gemstones, was the mini version of my favorite knife I had ever held, the one I had opened from Mia minutes ago. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever held.

But it was Glimmer's present that really stole the show. I unwrapped a white clothing box from shiny silver paper, and all I could think of was _Crap. She got me some stupid-ass skirt._ But instead I pulled out a soft, shiny, black _leather jacket._ Woah. Holy shit. Crap my pants. I laughed aloud as I pulled it on, twirling around so my guests could see. From the roaring applause, I could tell they really loved it. My smile widened as I stretched out each arm, admiring how well the jacket hugged the curve of my arm. As I flipped my left arm back and forth, I saw one word, stitched on the inside of my left wrist in tiny brown thread, were the words _Kill Katniss._ I smiled. Glimmer could never really give something away with Glimmer-fying it, could she?

_Glimmer_

After Clove had opened her present, she had come down to thank us, wearing her leather jacket and bracelet with Marvel's note stuck to her back. As she went away with Cato, Gabby came up to me with a plate full of cream puffs. She handed one to me.

"Glimmer, you've got to try these! This is my seventh and the cooks just brought them out two minutes ago!"

I smiled and stuck one in my mouth. Gabby was right-first there was the delicious delicate flakiness of the puff, and then the sweet cream exploded into my mouth, forcing me to close my eyes and moan in pleasure. I took another off Gabby's plate and walked off towards the snack table, where Courtney was precariously balancing a plate FULL of treats. I mean, seriously-there were at least six huge brownies, ten mini quiches, and about twenty cream puffs and angel food cake chunks.

"Hey, Courtney." I greeted her casually. "That sure is a lot of food you're taking."

She looked up at me for a second, then continued piling food onto her plate.

I cocked my head to the side and asked her, "Hey, Courtney, do you know what Gip is spelled backwards?"

Courtney stopped and looked at me.

"Pig." With that, Courtney dumped her plate of food wistfully back onto the dessert platter she was taking it from. With a nervous glance at me, she changed her mind and took three brownies and scurried off.

"Happy birthday, Clove," I said, smiling.


	19. Random Crap

Chapter 19

_Clove_

It had been about a week since my birthday party, and I was on my way to my personal training session with Gip (Dr. Samuel had made us be nice to her.). But anyway, once I walked into the gym, I saw that someone was already occupying it. Glimmer was in the middle of the room, doing a series of high kicks and twists. Gip was next to her, dodging Glimmer's flinging arms and trying (I say _trying_, not succeeding.), to offer advice, none of which Glimmer was taking.

Then suddenly Glimmer lost it. I'd never in my life seen her lose it; she'd been able to keep her cool through everything. But all it took was Gip's "Hey, maybe you should hold your arms in more!" and that must've hit a nerve, because all of a sudden Glimmer did a high kick right to Gip's head. She swung her arm around and caught Gip in a headlock. Twisting her around so Gip faced her, Glimmer took two knuckles and punched her right below her throat. I head a soft _crack!_ And Gip crumpled from Glimmer's grip with a gurgling cry.

Glimmer's head snapped down to look at Gip's closed eyes for a minute, and then collapsed to her knees. Turning her head ever so slightly, she saw me and jumped back up.

"Clove! What the _fuck_ did I just do?" she cried.

"Well, by the looks of it, you collapsed her esophagus," I said calmly, approaching her. We both glanced at Gip's barely-moving chest. "Oh, she'll be dead soon. Any second and…oh, there she goes!" Gip's chest fluttered to a stop. I looked at Glimmer, who had a small sneer on her lips as she looked at the dead body before her.

She saw me looking, and tried to put on a sober face, but eventually just burst out laughing. "Okay, you have to admit, that was _hilarious."_

"Yeah, I guess it _was_ pretty badass for a District One blonde," I laughed.

"Hey, District One is _sexy!_ Have ya _seen_ me?" Glimmer joked (well, actually I'm pretty sure she wasn't joking, she has a pretty high self esteem).

"Oh yeah, if I was a guy I'd be jumping out of my pants," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

We heard footsteps, and turned to see Claire walking into the room. "Claire! Wouldn't you agree that I'm sexy?" Glimmer asked her playfully.

"Oh sure, I would totally date you," Claire said, smirking. Then she saw Gip's body on the ground and her face turned solemn as she glared up at us. "Who did this?" she asked with steely eyes.

Glimmer beamed and waved her hand around. "That was me, _that _was me!" she proclaimed happily.

Claire's eyes sent daggers towards Glimmer, but after about two seconds we saw the sparkle turn back to her eyes as she started laughing. And laughing. And laughing. Claire was bent over, _crying_ with laughter. Eventually she stood up, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"I..am..so..proud..of you," she said between breaths. "This is the most hilarious thing that's happened all fricken _day_! But Dr. Samuel's not going to be happy. Let's just say…she was swinging on a bar and it collided with her throat. Agreed?"

"Yep."

"Got it!"

_Clove_

Gip's funeral was, possibly, the most pathetic, hilarious spectacle ever.

First, out of me, Cato, Glimmer, Marvel, Dr. Samuel, Allie, Gabby, Izzy, Mia, Claire, Remington, Thorne, Cilla, and Luke, only Dr. Samuel was wearing black. The rest of us hadn't even bothered to dress even remotely nicely-Glimmer was next to the coffin wearing an _I'm with Stupid_ T-shirt, smiling. Dr. Samuel shot her a look and began to say some randomly stupid words that no one was paying attention to.

"She was a nice person, although annoying sometimes-" Dr. Samuel was interrupted by a laugh. We all looked at Glimmer, whose head was buried in her arms, shaking with laughter. We looked at her, and then the whole group just burst into simultaneous laughter. Even Dr. Samuel joined in.

_Clove_

The next day during training, Glimmer and I were running laps around the room when all of a sudden Cato and Marvel started launching rubber arrows at us. We easily deflected them, and I saw a flash of red on Glimmer's wrist. I caught her hand and, right below her left hand, tattooed in tiny red cursive, was the word _blood._

"Hey, what's this?" I asked her.

Glimmer glanced at her wrist enclosed in my grasp. "Oh! That's from my um…I guess you would say my _rock bottom_ stage?"

Seeing my blank expression, she continued, "About five years ago, from the time I turned fourteen to about the time I was fifteen, I got mad at my parents-really, _really_ mad, because I finally had a real boyfriend, and he was…bad. My parents hated him."

"Marvel?"

"No."

"…Dan?"

"No. His name was Paulic. He was into all these drugs and stuff, and he had no place to stay, so I let him stay with me, but my parents totally freaked out and kicked him out. I got really pissed, so I moved out too. I dyed my hair black and got tattoos all over. That's when my life totally crashed. My grades dropped, and then I just stopped going to school altogether. I started stealing and taking morphling and other shit with Paulic, and then one day…he overdosed and…"

Glimmer's eyes filled with tears and she stopped running.

"That's okay," I said quickly. "We don't have to talk about it."

She nodded and said, "That's why I freaked out about you taking the morphling, Clove. I don't want you to end up like Paulic."

"Don't worry about me; I can take care of myself," I responded with a small smile.

"After Paulic died, I met Dan, and we dated for about a year before he was reaped when I was fifteen and he was sixteen. When he was killed, I relapsed. I had never gone to rehab after being with Paulic; Dan had been able to keep me away from morphling, but when he was gone I had no one to keep me in line. One day, probably both the worst and best day of my life, happened. It was the worst day because it was probably the lowest point in my life. I was totally wasted. It was the best day because that's when Marvel found me. He helped me check into rehab, and he wouldn't let me leave until he was sure the stuff was out of my system. And Marvel's been by my side ever since."

"Oh! Well after I got out of rehab and stuff, I got all the tattoos removed-except for this one. I kept it as a reminder of the worst two years of my life. And I alsokept it because I really liked it." Glimmer smiled.


	20. The Final Test Pt 1: Single Victories

**First of all…PLEASE vote on my poll! It won't be open for a super long time, so vote now while you can! And in order for me to write the next couple of chapters, I need to know the results! So please vote, vote, vote! And second of all…It's the twentieth chapter! And when I say "stepped into District One" or whatever, I mean the big training area that was set up to LOOK like the districts, they're not actually IN any of the districts. But they're super, super huge places made to exactly replicate the districts so they can train them, so….yeah. And I just wanted to apologize for the second part of the chapter name…I know it's lame. :P. I wanted to get the idea across where they were being tested by themselves….SORRY THIS NOTE IS SO LONG! Hopefully this chapter will be longer, since it's the TWENTIETH! AH! It's so special! AND since it's SO special…..how about we try for….a SPECIAL amount of reviews? Because that would make me SO happy! And let me just say: I am VERY honored when someone puts this on Story Alert or Favorite Story, but I get VERY sad when they do that but they DON'T REVIEW! I mean, come on, how hard would it be to REVIEW! I mean um….excuse me, I uh…lost it for a second….well, here it is, the TWENTIETH CHAPTER!**

Chapter Twenty: The Final Test Pt. 1: Single Victories

_Clove_

Cato, Glimmer, Marvel, and I were in the training room at the butt crack of dawn, waiting for our trainers. We didn't know why we were here exactly; we had each been woken up by Dr. Samuel and had been dragged down here a half hour ago, and being told to wait here for our trainers.

Finally, Allie came in through the main door, followed by Gabby, Izzy, Mia, and Claire. She tapped Glimmer, who was sleeping with her head in Marvel's lap. Marvel, sleeping with his head against the wall, woke with a start. Me, who had been leaning up against the wall nodding off, kicked Cato in the side, who was snoring on the ground at my feet.

Allie put her hands on her hips and looked at us. "Today is your final test for fighting in each district. Since it will take a while to get through every district, we're starting pretty early. You will be tested in each district, in three different ways: First by yourself, then in partners, and finally, all together. You will be paired up with each person and learn to play off of their strengths and weaknesses. In some ways, this will be just like the Games, with traps and surprises around every corner. So, should we get started?"

"No. We should go back to sleep," I said.

"Shut up, Clove," said Allie irritably. "Since you're so eager to get started, why don't you choose your weapon and go stand over by the District One door?"

I sighed and gave Allie the finger. I went over the wall of weapons and chose a small dagger, three throwing knives, and a small gun, and strapped them to my belt. I walked over to a large wooden side door with a simple black 1 printed on it. Allie opened the door, and in I went.

_Glimmer_

After Clove went in to her training room, Marvel, Cato, and I picked our weapons and also stood at a different district door; me at Two, Cato at Three, and Marvel at Four. Mia opened my door and I was thrust into District Two.

_Cato_

I was barely even able to look at the setup of District Three before I was hit with the sights and smells of smoke. Tall, black factories towered over the road, belching black and white smoke. I coughed as the smoke worked its way into my mouth; I didn't know how real the trainers had made this smoke, but I didn't want to take any chances. I strapped on my gas mask and made my way through the smoke, my gun pointed in front of me. I had one objective: make my way through the district, get into the Justice Building, and disable…something or other. I had been half asleep when the District Three trainer told me. I didn't care enough to remember his name. I figured Dr. Samuel would be tracking me, and would send me a message through my earpiece and brief me on my mission when I was getting close to the Justice Building.

An explosion to my left interrupted my thoughts. I strained my eyes to see through the smoke, trying to get a glimpse of what had happened. As my eyes finally focused on a large smoky pile of rubble, a second explosion occurred, scattering the smoke away from me and clearing the air so I could see the fiery debris that was about to fall right on top of me.

_Marvel_

As Allie opened the door to District Four, I took a deep breath, preparing to start running from dive-bombing planes…or whatever the trainers thought would be appropriate, but instead I got a mouthful of salt water.

_Clove_

As soon as I stepped into District One, I was poised with my hand on my knife, ready to take it out and whip it at someone's face, but, instead of expecting to step into the middle of a battlefield, I found myself in a small field on a clear day with calm breezes every few minutes. In a short distance I could see the big District One city. _Okaaaay….what was going on?_ I thought to myself. _Aren't we supposed to be facing traps and shit like that? _But then I realized that this could all be a trap. The calmness of the day, the lack of…well, destruction…it could all be a trap, just like the poisonous flowers or mutts in the arena. So I started toward the city slowly, scoping out the area around me on high alert. Every twig I snapped, every leaf I crunched, I mistook it for an attacker every time. _Okay. You're way too jumpy. Calm down, _I told myself.

Wow, District One has it _good. _As I made my way into the city, high rises disappeared into the clouds, and shiny billboards were all over, advertising various items. I saw many for _CapitolGurl!, _a brand I've seen Glimmer wear a lot. There was also a huge painting on the side of a building with a picture of that Capitol airhead Glimmer had gotten to plan my birthday party. The advertisement read, "If I'm your party planner, I can promise you'll have a 'Capitol' time!" Ugh. Capitol humor. As I was gawking at the luxuries of District One, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my thigh.

"Shit! What the-? _Ow!"_ As I twisted around to examine what had hit me, I was hit again; this time in my right shoulder. I whipped my head around and quickly examined my shoulder. There was a small barb sticking halfway in it, surrounded by a small smear of red blood. I tried to look for my attacker, but then I was hit twice more. I began to run toward the center of the city, trying to shield my face from the barbs that were now pelting me from either side.

_Glimmer_

I eased myself cautiously into District Two, preparing for the worst. When at first I saw or heard nothing, I started to walk more quickly into the district. Suddenly my foot caught on something and I almost tripped. Regaining my balance, I looked down to see what had tripped me and screamed the loudest I'd ever before.

Lying on the ground at my feet was the most horrible sight I could ever imagine. Marvel, one eye half open and the other scratched closed, was sprawled out on the ground, both arms bloody and twisted at impossible angles. He opened his mouth and made a guttural sound that sounded vaguely like my name. His legs were shot out in front of him, marred by huge gashes, and spread around his body was a scarily huge crimson puddle.

Stifling a sob, I kneeled down next to him, and I was stretching my arm out to brush his blonde bangs out from his eyes when suddenly the ground beneath him slowly opened up, swallowing him, as he reached out to me with a dazed look in his eyes. I tried to pull him out of the hole that was eating him, but it was like a hundred people were pulling on him from the other side. Exasperatingly devastated, I saw him wrenched my arms. It seemed as though everyone was taking things from me. District Two taking Marvel; Katniss taking my bow and arrows. I leaned back on my heels, crying and looking at the ground that was now resealing itself. I finally got a hold on myself and realized that Marvel really couldn't have been here. He's in District Four right now, testing. This thing that I had just seen was just a trap, something devised by the trainers to unnerve me and to test how well I could cope with losing someone while in battle. That was it. I could do this. I stood up and noticed how eerily quiet everything was. Not a thing moved nor a sound was made. However, the silence was gone as soon as it had come; instead it was replaced by howling winds that announced the giant tornado that I could see swirling in the air a quarter mile from where I stood.

_Marvel_

Blackness. I was surrounded by blackness. Wet, murky blackness. What the hell? I was in some kind of salt water. A gulf, I suppose, since I was in District Four. How was I supposed to complete my mission while in water? I quickly turned back to where I had come from, to go back and ask Allie what the _hell _was going on, but instead of feeling a solid door where I had come from, the only thing I felt was water. Had I somehow gone up or down or turned around in the ten seconds I'd been here? The slight burning in my lungs shut me up and told me what to do: swim, and hope that I was going up.

_Cato_

Adrenaline pumped through me as I sprinted away from the chunks of fire falling from the explosion. I yelped as something extremely hot landed on my shoulder, and I craned my neck long enough to see the huge burn mark that was forming. I tore my gaze from it and turned towards the road again, waiting for more disasters. And a disaster I got. On both sides of me, a line of people appeared, leaning out of the open factory windows. Without warning, they began to throw knife after knife at me. I jumped out of the way, only to have more thrown at me. I could see the Justice Building ahead of me; all I needed to do was to get out of this knife ambush and I would be there. A knife skimmed my calf, and the butt of one hit me in the back of my head. I paused for a minute, dazed, then came to my senses and ran forward at top speed. I launched myself into the air and did a front flip, landing cleanly on my feet. I paused enough to say, "That was fricken _awesome,"_ and then started to run again, dodging all the knives.

Once I finally made it to the front gates of the Justice Building, my earpiece crackled to life and Dr. Samuel's voice became clear in my head. "Good work, Cato. You've made it to the Justice Building,"

"No shit," I said.

Dr. Samuel sighed in my ear. "Cut the crap, Cato. Just because this is a test doesn't mean there aren't security cameras watching you and a team of "rebels" that are waiting to take you down. Now, what you have to do is simple: get to the Command Room of the Justice Building and disable the District Three rebels' live news feed communicator. The actual disabling won't be hard, but getting in the room might be. We're not sure yet of how secure the actual district's Justice Building is, but we're just assuming it will be well stocked with guards. So, be on the lookout and be ready for just about anything we'll throw at you. Got it?"

"Yep."

_Clove_

"Clove?" Mia's voice was suddenly in my ear. "I see you've made it into the city,"

"Uh, ya, I'm okay, thanks for asking," I grunted, wiping away the blood that was running down my body.

"Look, Clove, I didn't check in with you for you to cry to me like I'm your mother. Now, you remember your mission, right?"

"I try to find my way through District One without dying, and find the Capitol hovercraft waiting for me in the field at the other end of the city. Relatively easy."

"Yes. Now, -ne thing….remem….don't…bec-….climb…gl-…fly-," Mia's voice became staticky in my ear, I pressed my earpiece farther into my ear, trying to better the connection, but nothing worked.

"-ck. Okay? If…then….whole thing….die-" the earpiece was silent.

"_Shit!" _I yelled, ripping out the thing in protest and throwing it onto the ground. Even without instruction, it wouldn't be _too _hard: make it through One, find hovercraft, leave. Simple. Well, simple until those dogs running towards me don't eat me alive.

_Glimmer_

One moment it was calm, and then a strong breeze began, lifting my hair. Then the breeze grew stronger, whipping my air around my face, making it impossible for me to see. I blindly found the hair band on my wrist and tied my hair in a tight bun. Meanwhile, debris was flying all over the place because of the winds: chairs, tables, even a few bodies-something hard hit me on the head, and I fell to the ground, my vision blurring. My mind started to wander, but a sharp voice in my ear brought me back to reality.

"Glimmer!" Allie snapped in my ear. "Get. Up!"

Reluctantly, I sat up, holding my spinning head. "Whaaa?" I stammered.

I heard Allie sigh. "Okay, Glimmer, focus. _Focus!" _she said more sharply.

I gave my head a physical and mental shake, then tried to see through all the dust and crap that was whirling in the strong winds around me.

"Okay, Glimmer, if you want to stay alive, you'll have to get out of the tornado path, and _quick. _Do you see that little ditch a little ways to your right?"

I looked, and, seeing the ditch Allie must've been referring to, I nodded. Wondering how she could've known that I nodded, I listened to her continue.

"Ok. You need to get in there and stay down until the tornado passes. Alright?"

"Yes, I got it!" I said confidently.

"Okay, Glimmer….good luck." The earpiece was silent before I could even respond.

Not wanting to waste time and chance getting hit again, I quickly made my way over to the ditch. Looking down into it, I gagged. _Surely Allie couldn't have wanted me to stay _here, _could she? _Not believing it, I searched a little bit around this ditch to find that there were no others. Looking into the ditch again, I shuddered. I _had _to find somewhere else to take cover.

Because this ditch was filled with row after row of humming tracker jacker nests.

Gasping for breath, I backed away from the ditch, the wind still howling around me. Off to my right, I spotted a small shop with the lights inside dimly lit. I didn't think about what could be in there; I just ran for it.

When I got in the shop, however, I saw that there were a lot of other people taking cover there, too. And by their black communicuffs I could also tell they were all Rebels.

Shit.

_Cato_

As I made my way to the closed front gates of the District Three Justice Building, I stopped every few seconds, expecting another attack of some sort. But no such attack came. I slinked around the coverage of the security camera perched on top of the gates and shot a dart at the screen. A faint alarm sounded inside the gates, but I punched out the identification box and squeezed through the barely open gates anyway.

_Marvel_

Finally, much to the appreciation of my burning lungs, my head finally broke the water and I surfaced, gulping down as much air as I could hold. I peered through the mist hovering over the water and was able to see the vague light from a flashing light house filtering through the mist. I swam towards it, trying not to think of what might be swimming below me. Finally, I made it to a loud and crowded dock; the smell of fish prominent and tons of fishermen milling around on the pier. One saw me and helped me out of the water. I was surprised at the number of people out at this hour; by the color of the sky it was barely even dawn. Fishing starts early here, I suppose. The fisherman who had helped me lifted his hooded head, revealing his face-or, more correctly, _her _face.

"Thorne?" I asked uncertainly, seeing the shocking red hair and bright eyes of my stylist.

"Yes, Marvel," Thorne laughed to my shocked face. "I'm originally from District Four, so I volunteered to help with the training this year. Well, not exactly help; I'm just your tracker and briefer. The other three receive their instructions from their briefer through an earpiece, but since we were running low on the waterproof ones, here I am in person!" she finished dramatically, spreading her arms out wide. But then Thorne's face turned serious again. "But now's not the time for small talk, Marvel," she said. "You have an important mission! Make your way to the Justice Building in the middle of town and search the place for a purple communicuff."

My face was a question mark. "A…purple…?"

"Yes, that's right, a purple communicuff," Thorne confirmed. "There will be only one code programmed into it, and if you call it, you will connect to Hunter, and he will give you further instructions then. The communicuff is in a certain woman's office; her name is Katy Traviz. Find the communicuff, but beware: Katy is vicious, and if she finds you, she might…well she will _probably…_have you killed. So _be careful!"_

Nodding, I went off into the darkened town, looking for the Justice Building.

_Clove_

I had been running for ten minutes straight, and I _still _hadn't lost those stupid mutts. Somehow, I wasn't tired. I think my seemingly unlimited supply of energy was replaced by the fear of being shredded to bits by those stupid-ass dogs.

Suddenly I heard nothing behind me. I slowly turned around, expecting a huge beast or something tearing through the dogs. But when I turned around, I saw something I was _not _expecting. Something was feeding on the dogs.

And they were cats. Fricken dog-eating cats. I backed away slowly; not wanting to make a sound, but one of the cats looked up and saw me, and started howling like hell. As if a switch had been turned on, all of the other cats looked up at me and started screeching just like the first one. I sighed, and as if it would help my situation, I gave the fricken cats the finger. And then I ran. Like hell. Again.

_Glimmer_

Of course, as soon as I opened the shop door, all eyes were on me. I immediately put my down and started towards the back of the store, murmuring quiet "Sorrys" and "Excuse mes" when needed. I knew I had to get rid of all these people; I would get killed if I didn't. It didn't matter if this was training or not. I didn't want to necessarily have to kill every single one of these people, but they _were _all Rebels, and I remembered what Allie had told us before we'd gone into our training districts. She had said, "It doesn't matter if this is just training. If you see a Rebel or someone or some_thing _that threatens you, just kill it. Just remember: these people have volunteered their lives in order to have trained tributes. Just. Kill. Them."

So, quietly, I drew my knife and stuck it in the person's back that was in front of me. They died instantly; I had stabbed them right through their heart, and I caught them so they didn't fall noisily and arouse the crowd. I carefully dragged them to the back of the store and shoved their body in the small bathroom. Slowly but surely, I repeated this process, making my way up to the front of the store. I really don't know how no one noticed me; maybe it was because of the fact that everyone's eyes were trained outside where the tornado was ripping apart everything it came in contact with. I, along with the people looking outside, could tell that the tornado was getting close to where we were taking cover.

There were only three people beside me in the building who were alive when the clerk behind the counter saw me dragging a female body and started screaming. The other four whipped around to face me; their eyes shooting daggers. All four of them started opening their mouths wider…and wider…. and wider…until their mouths were almost as round as their head. That's when I knew that something was terribly wrong about these people. I was just drawing my gun to take them all out when I heard the buzzing that rooted me to the spot.

It was the same buzzing from the ditch.

It was the same buzzing from the arena.

It was the same buzzing from my nightmares.

And it was coming from the people's mouths.

The adrenaline kicked in as soon as the first tracker jacker shot out of the clerk's mouth. With a screech, I whipped out my gun and shot the person dead. But that didn't stop the tracker jacker. It whizzed toward me, and despite my weak attempt to cover myself, it stung me in the leg. But then the weirdest thing happened.

The tracker jacker froze in the air, then plummeted straight to the ground. Tracker Jackers don't die after one sting. They sting you as many times as they want. Then I realized something else: I felt the same. I didn't feel any proof that the tracker jacker had stung me, no wooziness, no hallucinations.

_Well this will be easy! _I thought joyfully. _Who cares if they sting me? They die and I don't even feel anything!_

I thought too soon. My knees buckled and I almost collapsed with the wave of nausea that filled me. My brain got so fuzzy I could barely see, and the worst headache I'd ever had worked its way into my head. It literally felt as if my head was popping at the seams. These things were no Tracker Jackers. These things were muttutations of the already terrible Tracker Jackers. And only one sting from these could kill. I had to get out of here.

I shot blindly, and, hearing four more bodies fall to the ground, was satisfied, and stumbled throughout the shop until I found a doorknob, twisted it, and crumpled into an empty closet.

_Have to get out of here, have to get out of here, _I kept thinking to myself.

"Allie! Allie! Help me, get me out of here!" I shouted into the earpiece she had given me, the venom from the tracker jacker making me slur my words.

"Glimmer, Glimmer, shh, calm down. We're coming to get you. You've passed your test."

_Cato_

I sprinted across the dying lawn to the double front doors of the District Three Justice Building and yanked them open. Huh. So an alarm goes off inside and they don't even lock the front doors. Idiots.

But as soon as I opened the door, though, I found my way blocked by two security guards. Without hesitating, I punched each of them in the nose, taken by surprise, they doubled over and I stabbed each of them in the back.

I ran past them, and as I got deeper in the Justice Building, the more guards popped up, each one with deadlier weapons, but I was quick and killed them all in an instant. Finally, I got to a large steel door that, in red brick letters, spelled out clearly, DISTRICT THREE COMMAND ROOM.

Not wanting to waste any time, I kicked down the door. Holding out my gun in front of me, I shot the two men who were sitting in swiveling chairs in front of a huge electronic map of District Three, under which was a long silver desk-like thing with colorful whirring buttons and other crap. Shoving the bodies off of the chairs, I leaned over the desk and ran my fingers along the numerous buttons, and finally found a small square hatch that read COMMUNICATIONS FEED. Damn, these people were making this easy. I flipped the hatch easily and switched the switch from its ON position to its OFF one. All the lights in the room except the EXIT sign by the door went out, and then Dr. Samuel's voice filled the room.

"Okay, Cato. See that big wooden door in the corner of the room? Open it and walk straight in. Good work, Cato. You have passed your test."

_Marvel_

Somehow I made it to the Justice Building without getting attacked. I slipped through a side door that had been left slightly ajar. I walked down a large hallway, where, at the end, was extremely congested with people trying to get through one tiny door. I tried to get through, but someone pushed me down and held a gun up to my head, hissing, "Nobody gets past me, boy. Nobody." I sighed and kneed the guy in the stomach, then raked my knife against the side of his head, drawing a huge amount of blood.

Stunned by the sight of the bleeding man, the crowd parted, and I walked through the door easily.

I didn't realize I was in Katy Traviz's office until I saw a name plate on the big mahogany desk that read, well, Katy Traviz. Then I spotted the gleam of purple on her desk. _Yes, _I thought, _the purple communicuff. This is _SO _fricken easy. _

I grabbed the communicuff but was momentarily distracted when a beast shot up from under the table. I almost dropped the communicuff in surprise. An extremely chubby creature rose up in front of me, with no makeup on, her hair tied in a stringy ponytail, and numerous coffee stains dripping down her shirt.

"I…am Katy Traviz," she lisped.

I shot her in the head.

As she fell to the ground, dead, I clicked into the communicuff's contacts, and, sure enough, there was Hunter's code. Almost as soon as I clicked on his name, Hunter's deep voice filled my ears.

"Walk through that small red door to your right. Good work, Marvel, you have passes your test."

_Clove_

I could see the field getting closer…and closer…if only I could shake these stupid cats! While still running towards the near approaching field, I quickly turned around and flipped my throwing knife at the lead cat, hitting my target perfectly. But the loss of their leader seemed to anger the cats more. I ran and ran…right into a hovercraft.

As I sank to the floor, the sound of Mia's voice filled my ears.

"Good work, Clove. You've passed your test."

_Glimmer_

I opened my eyes to see multiple pairs of eyes staring intently into mine. I sat up, and realized I was on the floor of the main training room. Clove, Cato, Marvel, Allie, and all of the other trainers were standing in a semi-circle around me.

"Oh, Glimmer, how are you feeling? You've been asleep for the past hour, sleeping off the medication the doctors gave you that drew out that venom."

"I-I'm fine," I stammered, regaining my voice. "But why am I in here, and not in the hospital?"

"Well, you _were _in the hospital, but-" Allie began.

"_But," _Clove interrupted, "Allie said she wouldn't explain anything until you woke up, so I kidnapped you from the hospital and dragged you in here, but your lazy fat ass _still _wouldn't wake up."

"That's enough, Clove," Allie said sternly. "Now, I think you all will agree with me when I say that all of your tests were extremely simple,"

Seeing our nods, she continued. "This was just merely a small test of your weaknesses and how well you reacted. Glimmer, you were tested on your fear of tracker jackers. Clove, your endurance was tested, as well as your ability to continue without instruction, which is why your communication with Mia was cut off. Cato, your fast reactivity was tested. And Marvel, your ability to follow even the simplest of instructions. And, let me just say, that you _all _passed with flying colors.

_Clove_

"But what was the point of that horrible hallucination of Marvel?" Glimmer asked, her voice shaking quite unsteadily.

"We had to see how well you were able to fight when you thought you had lost one of your team members," Allie stated simply.

Glimmer vomited.

"Well, I'm surprised Cato here passed without longitating all over the place," I joked.

Cato punched me. "Longitating isn't a _word, _idiot."

"Sure it is!" I protested.

Cato smirked. "Oh yeah? Use it in a sentence, if you think you're all smart-assey."

"Okay." I shrugged and pointed to Glimmer's puddle of barf on the floor. "She just longitated all over the place."

**Okay. First I would just like to totally apologize for the suckiness of the end of this chapter. I had to finish quickly because I was being threatened by UnofficiallyClove. **

**And second, I wanted to say that I will be closing my poll on May 18****th****, exactly one month from now, so you have to hurry up and quickly VOTE to tell me which trainer you want to go with the four tributes to District Thirteen! :D**

**So there was the twentieth chapter! REVIEW PLEASE!**


	21. The Final Test Pt 2: Double Victories 1

**Okay. First of all I wanted to say sorry for not updating for, how long? PM UnofficiallyClove if you're curious. She tells me a billion times a day. So anyway, sorry for not updating; I just haven't really had any desire to write for this story, I don't know why. But anyway! I just got a LAPTOP! I'm so excited! This is my first chapter on it and hopefully I'll be able to get chapters up in one day since I can write later at night now! So! Anyway! Obviously my poll is still up…I thought I would've updated more by now….:/ But anyway, it's still up, and probably will be for a while, so VOOTE! Please! And you know what I was thinking? Clove reminds me of a Hunger Games version of Jane, from Twilight, and Leah Clearwater, too, kinda. And so now, here it is, the next chapter! Enjoy.**

**P.S. Cato and Marvel's mission was based off a really awesome dream I had. **

Chapter Twenty-one: The Final Test Pt. 2: Double Victories

_Glimmer_

"Now a lot of times you will be fighting in pairs," Allie began. "So for your second test you will be going into three different districts, each time with a different partner. And since you won't be by yourself, you will get your briefing here, instead of through an earpiece. We'll be here if we see that you're totally lost, but only then. No one will be helping you along the way. For the first test, Glimmer, why don't you take District Five with Clove, and Marvel and Cato, you'll be in Six. Everybody grab new weapons and go!"

I looked at Clove and walked with her to the wall of weapons, where she was grabbing a variety of knives.

"Why don't you try something different?" I asked. "All you fight with is knives."

"Trying something different is for training, Glimmer," Clove retorted, shoving more knives in her coat. "This is a test. No room for experimenting."

I rolled my eyes as I took a simple wooden bow off the wall and hooked it to my belt, following Clove to the door with a 5 marked on it. Sadie, the trainer from Five, briefed us on our mission.

"Okay, girls," she began, flipping her long brown braid over her shoulder. "District Five is all about DNA manipulations and mutations. So be on extra-high alert for mutts, because if you get a taste of mutts anywhere, it'll be in Five. And believe it or not: some of them can be even more vicious than ones made in the Capitol. So you know what that means? Tracker Jackers times ten."

I winced.

Sadie ignored my silent input. "All you have to do," she continued. "is make your way into the heart of District Five's biggest city, where a giant lab is housed. You need to get inside, find the main DNA manipulation room, and replace the human DNA of one of the distributing tubes with that of a dog, which will cause a huge freak out and delay in production."

She handed me a small jar with little stringy things inside it, and I put it safely into the inside pocket of my tight-fitting jacket.

"Now, as you make your way out of there, everybody in the lab will be going crazy, so you need to be as sneaky as you possibly can on your way to the control room, where you'll shut down the lab's power. Got it?"

Without waiting for an answer, Sadie pulled open the door to the District Five testing arena and started pushing us inside.

"Wait!" Clove said as Sadie pushed us through, "What are we supposed to do after we shut down the power?"

"You'll figure it out when you get there!" Sadie yelled after us, closing the door. "Good luck!"

_Marvel_

"Marvel, Cato, are you guys ready?" the trainer from Six called us from where we were picking out our weapons for our second test.

"You guys know the rundown on District Six, right? Medical research?" Lucius asked us when we got over to him.

We nodded, so he continued. "Good. Alright, since it's pretty much going to be all hospitals and labs all over the place, most people will be inside, along with most of the attacks. So remember: just because nothing attacks you when you're outside doesn't mean nothing's a watching you. District Six is tight with District Three, so they've got some pretty high-quality security cameras going on there."

"So what's the mission?" I asked, paying close attention.

"Pay attention," Lucius said strictly, "you won't want to miss anything I say, or your whole mission could go off course. Here, take these communicuffs," he said, strapping large silver ones to our wrists. "These are special visual versions, and you'll need these for a map of the library you'll be in during your mission. Just go to 'Maps and References,'" Lucius said, tapping on my communicuff, and click on 'District Six Medical Research Library,' and it will give you a detailed map of all the offices, secret entrances, and hallways are in the building, which you'll need to complete your mission, which is to find your way through the library without being captured and find the owner's office, which will be marked on your map as 'Master Office.' You'll need to disable the library's wireless connection, which will cut off all computer connection and stop the research. We'll pick you up when you're finished. Good luck!"

And with that, Lucius shoved us into District Six's testing arena.

_Clove_

As soon as we were in District Five, we were hit with this weird, anesthetic smell that seemed to be coming from everywhere. I looked at Glimmer and she shrugged, as clueless as I was. "It's the smell from the labs?" she guessed.

I nodded; it was as good a guess as ever. "So…which way's the heart of the city?"

Glimmer rolled her eyes. "_Please, _Clove. See that huge gray building? Obviously that's the heart of the city, because that's where all the rest of the gray buildings are clustered, if you had any eyes,"

She was right; in the near distance there was a clump of buildings where the tall gray one stood out, towering over the rest.

"I mean, can't you tell where the center of _your _city is, looking at the Nut?"

"No," I said defensively. "The Nut's the center of our _district._ It's on the outside of my village. So there."

Glimmer rolled her eyes and smirked. "Whatever. Hurry up, I want to be finished with this as soon as possible."

We walked side by side on the sidewalk, trying not to draw any attention to ourselves from the few people that were on the streets.

"Nothing's attacking us," Glimmer murmured. "What do you think that's supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," I whispered back. "But for my first test nothing attacked me till I was I the city."

"But we're already _in _the city," Glimmer said, looking around. "And none of these people are wearing Rebel communicuffs, so I-"

"It's the Capitol!" someone suddenly shouted, interrupting Glimmer. All of a sudden, guns were being pointed at us from every angle, their owners walking towards us. And we were already backed up against a building.

"Shit," Glimmer sighed, taking out her bow.

"Grab the gun, there's too many of them!" I yelled, no reason to be quiet anymore.

Putting her bow back, she quickly took out the pistol she had while I yanked my army gun from where it hung on my belt and pointed it back at our attackers.

"What do you want?" a man asked, advancing toward us, neglecting the warning of our gun.

"Free passage," I said.

"And your death," Glimmer growled.

I raised my eyebrows at her, impressed. All she did in return was shoot the man through the heart.

"Nice," I said, and then the shots started coming. I didn't have time to aim, so I just shot blindly in the people's direction. I received shots in my arms and legs, keeping the butt of my gun in front of my heart.

"You okay?" Glimmer called, shooting and dodging shots.

"Yeah," I said, breathing heavily. "We'll be done with these assholes before they can say 'Gotcha.'"

And then we were. Well, except for two more people yielding _huge _guns, who were across the street, apparently waiting till we had no one else to shoot.

"Hello, boys," I drawled, trying to delay their shots as long as possible. They advanced toward us, guns still in hand. Glimmer and I pointed our guns in defense. One of the men, however, dropped his gun and raised his hands in surrender. He walked up to Glimmer, and before she could stop him, traced his finger along the line of her jaw.

"Oooh, she's a pretty one," he said to his friend. Then he turned back to Glimmer. "How's about we take you home, no shooting. What do ya say, darlin'?"

"I say," said Glimmer. She kneed him in the groin and grabbed both of his arms while he was doubled over. "Do not _ever _touch me again." She twisted his arms and kicked him to the ground, where he lay holding both his arms to his chest, his face twisted in agony.

"Why you…" his friend started walking rapidly towards us, his finger on the trigger.

"Bye," I said in boredom, killing him with one shot.

_Cato_

I couldn't tell if I was happy or not to be partnered up with Marvel. Sure, he kicked ass at spear throwing-I mean, just look at the way he killed that little thing from District Eleven-but, he likes being in charge. When he got the communicuff he strutted around wearing it all day(well, I guess he had to wear it, but whatever.) I was pretty sure we'd pass our test easily, though, what with our skills, especially mine with a sword.

As soon as we were in District Six's training arena, we were both poised for an attack, regardless of Lucius's words, but no attack came. I know everybody says this in like every book on earth, but the streets were quiet-_too_ quiet.

"What do you think, man?" Marvel asked, his hand on his spear.

"I think we should get to the library to we can finish this." I said, starting to tap into my communicuff. "Damn, where is this map?"

"Maps and Refernces; type in the name of the library."

I found the map easily, and we started in the direction it told us to go. After a few minutes, I broke the silence.

"So what do you think about this?"

"Think about what?"

"How fricken easy this is. I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary since we've been here."

"That's because the only people who live in District Six are either half-dead morphling addicts or scientific noobs who spend all their time locked up in libraries looking up germs."

I snickered as we came to a stop in front of a huge square building with the words DISTRICT SIX MEDICAL RESEARCH LIBRARY in huge letters at the top.

"Well, I guess this is it," Marvel said, staring up at the huge building.

"It doesn't even _look _like a library," I said.

Marvel looked at me with a smirk on his face. "Please. How many times have you even _been _to a library?"

I smirked right back at him. "I can ask the same to you, asshole."

Marvel looked up, like he was contemplating something. "Well, there's the time I…." he trailed off and started walking to the back of the building.

"That's what I thought," I muttered, grinning.

"Hey, come look at this!" Marvel called, looking down at something in cage.

In the cage were two humongous guard dogs, both snoring in their own puddle of drool. They were much larger than any natural animal, with teeth as long as my thumb. Their tails were flopping down on the ground in perfect rhythm.

"What the hell's wrong with them?" Marvel asked.

"They're mutts," I said. "from District Five. Don't you have them in One?"

"No," Marvel said, like it should have been obvious. "Everybody's rich; there's no need to steal stuff from anybody else."

"Okay…" I said, trying to think. "These things are engineered to wake up if anything steps foot in their space, so if we try to sneak past them, they'll eat us alive. But we can't shoot them, because the noise will alert everyone inside and they'll kill us anyway. We can't stab them, because if someone comes out while we're inside, they'll see the blood and tell the guards inside that there are intruders. According to the map, this door is the closest to the Master Office, so it would be pointless to go through the front door; we'd be on a whole different floor."

"So, chloroform them," Marvel said.

"Um, do you _see _any chloroform here, stupid?"

"Yes. In my pocket." Marvel reached into his back pocket and brought out a syringe.

"_Where_ did you get _that?"_ I asked in disbelief.

"I stole it from the hospital."

"_Why?" _

"Because I thought it would be good to have. Now shut up and let me shut _them _up."

Marvel injected each of the dogs with chloroform, and their bodies seemed to slump even further. "Ready to go?" he asked.

"Yeah. The door shouldn't be locked because no one should be able to get past these dogs."

We stepped around the unconscious dogs and tried the door. Sure enough, it was unlocked, and we slipped quietly inside a long sterile-looking hallway.

"Okay. According to the map, we have to make our way through one of the main research rooms to get to another hallway that'll take us to the part of the library where the offices are held. Sound good?" Marvel said quietly.

I nodded. "Put your weapons away, so if anyone sees us we won't look conspicuous. But make sure they're easy to get to, in case we need them." I put my dagger and smaller gun in the inside pockets of my jacket, and Marvel did the same. We began to walk down the long hallway, being careful to not make any unnecessary noises.

When we got to the end of the hallway, I peered around the corner, where there was a large foyer where a few people were walking around, talking quietly and carrying books and computers.

"The research room is right off of the foyer," Marvel whispered to me. I nodded and we walked towards a clump of people entering the research room. We entered without anyone noticing, but then a woman, I'm assuming a librarian, started walking towards us.

"Hide your communicuff!" I muttered. He subtly put his hand s in his pockets while I folded my arms, making sure to hide my wrists.

"Hello," the librarian said. "I don't think I've ever seen you here before, can I help you with something?"

"No, we're uh," I started.

"Just visiting," Marvel finished quickly. "We were thinking about becoming researchers, and we just wanted to get a feel for the job."

"Well, ok," the librarian said, like she didn't quite believe us. "Feel free to ask me if you need anything."

I smiled and politely nodded at her before starting towards the bookshelves at the back of the room, where Marvel followed.

"We have to get out of here without that librarian catching us," Marvel hissed when we were sure no one could hear us.

"I know," I said. "She's watching us like a hawk."

"Just look like you're looking for books," Marvel said. "Then we'll say we have to use the bathroom and-"

"Marvel," I hissed suddenly. "Stop."

Marvel followed my eyes to where a geeky guy with his arms full of books was looking at us with his mouth agape.

"'Scuse me," I said, pretending to walk behind him, when really I slit his throat with my knife and caught him gently before he hit the ground.

"Shit," Marvel said quietly, looking at the body in my arms. "What were you planning on doing with him once you did that? I don't see anywhere to hide him."

"Shouldn't there be like cubbyholes or something?" I asked in annoyance.

Marvel rolled his eyes. "This is a library, not a storage facility."

I snorted. "You sound like my fourth grade teacher when I brought my sword to school. 'Cato, this is a classroom, not the arena.'"

"Seriously, though. What are we supposed to do? We can't just leave it here, someone will see it."

"I dunno, make a run for it?" I asked shrugging my shoulders.

Marvel sighed. It's as good a plan as any, I guess. Set him up against the bookshelf and grab a few heavy books in case anyone gets too close .We don't need to waste our weapons on these people; the worst they can do is research us to death. "

I snickered as I slumped the guy up against the rows of books. He fell right back down, making a muffled _thud. _

The librarian's head snapped up. "Sorry," I whisper-shouted her way. "Dropped a book."

We each grabbed a heavy textbook from the shelf. "Now!" I whispered.

We edged along the bookcases, then strolled out to the middle of the room towards the door. We were almost out when we heard someone scream. And then that's when we ran.

_Glimmer_

"Well this was easy," I said, looking up at the lab we had just arrived at.

"Are you sure this is the right one?" Clove asked in uncertainty.

"It has to be. It's the biggest one here." I walked behind a huge clump of bushes and sat down. "So what's our game plan?"

"Well we can't just walk in, because those crapass guards are in the way." Clove said.

I peered over the top of the hedge, and sure enough, two muscle monsters were standing guard there, both yielding guns.

Someone began walking up the front walk then. "I'm telling you, they should really up their security here," one person was telling their friend. "They just scan your badge and let you in. They don't even look at you."

The two people flashed the guards their badges, who let them right in. I turned around and sat back on the grass. "Well that was easy. All we have to do is kill the guards and go in."

"Ya, but we don't have badges," Clove answered.

"We'll take the guards'!" I said excitedly. "Weren't you listening? The inside security doesn't even look at you; they just scan your badge to make sure it's not a fake! This could potentially be the easiest mission ever!"

"What about the cameras?" Cove asked, pointing. Above the guards' heads there were two small black security cameras swiveling left and right.

"I got it," I said, pulling out a small tan gun that almost looked fake.

"What _is _that?" Clove asked.

"An iron gun. It's special edition; Allie told me they just designed it. You shoot someone in the foot, and a shock goes up their body that keeps them upright, even if theyre not leaning on something. It kills them once it gets to their brains, but once they feel it, it's so cold and hard-feeling that it feels like there's an iron bar I your body. The cameras can't look bhind the guards, obviously, because there's a building, so all we have to do is sneak around the corner of the building on our stomachs and shoot them through the foot. That was they're dead without looking it, and we'll be home free!"

Clove looked at me openmouthed, then said, "_What? _I mean, great plan at all, but it just sounds too…perfect. Like something will go wrong. And that still doesn't fix our badge problem. The security cameras will be able to see us taking the badges off the guards."

"Trust me," I said, smiling.

We slinked across the yard and army-crawled near the edge of the building.

"Shh," I whispered as we were at the guards' feet.

I lifted up the gun in front of the first one's foot, and squeezed the trigger. There was a barely audible _pop! _As the tiny bullet went into the guard's foot, and small shiver went up his spine. I stretched my arm across the ground and shot the other one, with the same results.

"Now watch this," I whispered. I got up and went next to the first guard.

"What?" I asked loudly, leaning my head closer to the dead man's ear. "Okay." I shrugged and pulled his badge off his neck, then did the same with the other's. I gestured for Clove to get up, and she slowly stood up next to the wall so as not to reveal herself to the cameras.

I put one of the badges on and gave her the other.

"What the hell was that?" she hissed once we were in the revolving door,

"I made it seem like the guy was telling me to take off his badge for him."

"Why? He's dead."

"I know," I shrugged, stepping into the building. "It was for the cameras."

Inside the lab were several stations with a card-swiper and a metal detector.

"Let me go first," Clove whispered. "Once I go through I'll hit mute so it doesn't freak out when our weapons go in again."

She walked forward and offered her badge to the attendant, who just stuck it in the machine without looking at it or Clove in the process.

"Kay. Go on in," he said sleepily, gesturing to the metal detector.

Clove smiled and stepped through, causing the detector to make a loud screeching sound.

"Whoops, sorry, girl. You'll have to empty your pockets and try it again," the attendant said.

"Oh, okay, I'm sorry," Clove said, beaming again. "I must've forgot to take out my extra change." While she was talking to the attendant I saw her foot discreetly stretch along the detector and kick the 'mute' button. She took out a couple coins from her pocket and strode through again, and this time the alarm did not sound.

I did the same, handing my badge to the guy and stepped through the metal detector with the same results as Clove.

"Thank God," I said once we were out of earshot. "Now we have to find the main DNA manipulation room. Any idea where that might be?"

"I've got feeling," Clove said, pointing to a sign on the wall: DNA MANIPULATION ROOMS A-L , ROOMS M-Z .

"But which one's the main one?" I asked in frustration.

"It'll be right between L and M," said Clove.

"Those rooms are in two different directions, Clove," I said irritably.

"The hallways go in a circle, and end up together," she replied, pointing to the map I hadn't noticed. "In Two, the main room in any factory is right in the middle of all the other ones, so it's the most protected. See this little circle between L and M marked with a squiggle? I'll bet you anything that's not just a decoration on the map, but the main room, that little squiggle being DNA,"

"Alrightey," I said, trying to absorb all that she said. "Let's do it."

"Which way?" Clove asked.

"Well, considering that there are people coming from the M-Z hallway, the A-L hallway's our best bet."

We got to the end of the hallway, and Clove was right; we were right across from the M-Z hallway. However, instead of a middle wall like any other double hallway, it opened up into a huge cavern with whirring machines and latex-covered people all over the place.

Clove handed me a doctor's mask and a pair of gloves from the boxes on the walls.

"We'll fit in," she explained. I nodded and pulled the mask over my curly hair.

"Badge," requested one of the guards at the door of the main DNA room. They weren't nearly as big as the guards at the front of the building, nor did they have guns, and I was almost positive that they would check our badges manually.

Clove handed him her badge, and I was right, one of the men looked right at it and raised an eyebrow.

"George Taylor, eh?" he asked sarcastically.

Clove put an intimidating face on and placed her hand firmly on his shoulder. "Are you making fun of my name?" she demanded.

"Oh, no…" I murmured, closing my eyes. She was going to get us into even more trouble than for stealing badges.

Suddenly, though, the man staggered and fell, hitting his head as he went down. The other guard knelt down to examine him while Clove put on a face of mock sympathy. "Oh, no, is he all right?" she asked.

"I'm sure he's fine," the other guard assured her. "He'll come around in a little while."

"Oh, no, you better get a second opinion!" Clove turned towards the rest of the cavern's occupants. "Excuse me!" she shouted. "Is anyone a doctor? We have an unconscious man here!"

Everyone looked at Clove's sudden outburst, then went back to their work as a woman worked her way through the crowd.

"Oh, dear, what happened?" she asked us.

"He got intimidated by my friend here and fainted," I said. "He was making fun of her name."

"And your name is?" the woman peered over her nose at Clove.

"George Taylor," she stated bluntly.

"Hmm," the woman said. "sounds familiar. Well, we better go make sure he's all right. Care to join me?"

The other guard went with, and Clove and I began to follow, but walked back to the DNA room when the other two were turned around. When we were inside I said, "What the hell was that all about? Why did he fall?"

"Easy," Clove smirked. "I pushed his pressure point. It was just luck that he hit his head on the way down."

"Whatever," I cracked a smile. "Let's just get this over with." I pulled the jar of dog DNA out of my jacket and unscrewed the lid.

Clove was standing next to a large glass globe with several strings of DNA connected to smaller tubes, which pumped some kind of liquid from the DNA to a silver machine. She sliced the tube open with her knife and plucked the human DNA out of the globe and replaced it with the dog's. She held the tube together while I tied a hair ribbon that I had in my pocket around it.

"That looks kind of pathetic," I said, looking at the poorly held together tube.

"It's fine. It'll hold it till we get to the control room. Now come on, let's get out of here."

We peeked our heads out the door, where we saw a scene of havoc before us. Every computer screen we could see was flashing red, and an alarm was blaring. People were running all over the place with clipboards and frantic looks about their faces.

"How are we supposed to find the control room in all this?" Clove asked.

"One second." I ran up to a frazzled looking woman frantically pushing buttons on her keyboard.

"Ma'am!" I tried to make my voice sound distraught. "Could you point me in the way of the control room? I'm here to help fix the problem and was told the rest of my team was in the control room!"

"Uh, y-yes," the woman said distractedly. "Down those stairs, take an immediate left."

"Thank you so much!" I cried, running back to Clove.

"Down the stairs, immediate right. Come on!"

"STOP THOSE GIRLS!"

_Marvel_

"There's a body back here!" came another shriek.

"_Run," _Cato hissed.

"I _am,_" I shot right back.

"Hey, you! You boys! Stop right there!" The librarian. She was chasing us.

"Go!" We jumped into the hallway and Cato whipped out his gun and shot her in the face before slamming the door. He did it so quickly that blood splattered the window of the door.

"Lock it," I urged. We turned around, poised to run to the end of the hallway, where a man was standing, pointing a gun at us. He started running towards us, his finger about to pull the trigger.

"Come on," I pulled my gun out of my jacket and covered my face as I crashed through the glass window onto the building-lengthed balcony below. Cato followed me and we ran along it, shooting the glass where the man stood before it.

"That must be the owner of the library," Cato said as we were running. "He had some kind of special badge or something."

"We're right...by…his office," I said, dodging three bullets. "It's at the end of this balcony. We'll have to get in through the window; if we go from the inside there's a wall in the way."

All of a sudden Cato backtracked, stuck his head through one of the broken windows, and shot his gun. He leaned back out, the glass cutting his neck, and said, "Well he's done."

"Come on," I said. "We're almost done."

Sure enough, at the end of the balcony, we could see through the window an office in which was a small desk scattered with papers.

Cato shot the window and made a hole big enough for us and we squeezed in. As soon as we stepped foot in the office I locked the door, giving us a minute to catch our breath.

"So what are we looking for again?" I asked.

"The library's wireless connection."

"Well that's easy, it's probably ass connected with this computer here. If we disable this one, we'll disable the whole library's."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Cato asked. "I don't know shit about computers."

"Eh, just smash it," I said, smirking. "And the screen, too. What the hell?"

So Cato smashed the actual computer, while I punched through the screen, causing pieces of it to splinter everywhere, including in my hand.

"Did we do it?" I asked.

"I don't know…Yes we did!"

"How do you know?"

Cato pointed out the window, where a white Capitol hovercraft was waiting to pick us up.

"Congratulations, guys," Lucius said, his head hanging our of the passenger window. "You've passed your test."

_Clove_

"What now?" I sighed. Guards-armed, by the looks of it-were sprinting towards us at full speed.

"Just go," Glimmer said tiredly. We ran the rest of the way to the stairs, wrenching open the thin wooden door and skidding across the floor into the control room, where three men were pointing to something on one of the many screens. I punched, Glimmer kicked, and then the men went down.

"Shut the door!" Glimmer yelled. We could hear the thud of the guards' boots on the stairs.

I slammed the door and pushed a chair up against it, and by that time Glimmer had already found the control panel. She flipped all of the switches to their 'off' positions, and the room was plunged into absolute darkness.

"Now what?" Glimmer whispered. Just then a red EXIT sign popped up, and the guards kicked the door down.

"Now we run for that door!" We yanked open the door to the exit and jumped in.

The next second we were sliding down a huge polished wood slide into the main training room, where I could see Marvel and Cato with the rest of the trainers already.

We finally made it down the ginormous slide, and when we did, Glimmer looked up at it and said, "Huh. Never noticed that before."

Then she noticed the blood running down Marvel's face and ran over to him.

"What happened?" she cried.

Marvel shrugged. "Nothin much. Just punched some glass."

Glimmer rolled her eyes and Allie said, "Well done, girls. You've passed your second test. In a little while you'll be going to another district with a different partner, but right now I'll let you catch your breath. And Cato and Marvel, Dr. Samuel will have to take a look at you and see if there's any shards of glass still in you."

Glimmer shuddered.

"Oh, shut up," I said. "You have a buttload of Tracker Jacker stings in you, and we didn't act all grossed out!"

"At least I didn't lose to a rock," Glimmer said with a smile.

**Well there, hope you liked it! Maybe the longness of it will make up for my lack of updating…I don't know. But anyway, I thought it would be fun to touch down on each person's relationship with each other, so I'll post the rest of the double victories in another chapter. I was going to fit them all into this one, but it would be like a million words long, and I doubt any of you would want to look at a computer screen that long. **


	22. The Final Test Pt 3: Double Victories 2

_Clove_

After Marvel and Cato got stitches in their neck and everything was all howdy-doody again, Allie began to set us up for another mission.

"_Ugh," _I groaned. "Can't we take a break now? You people woke me up too early and I need food."

"Shut up, Clove," Allie said irritably. "You go with Marvel over to Eight's door, while Cato and Glimmer will take Seven."

I rolled my eyes and followed Marvel to a man waiting next to the door with a white 8 painted on it.

The trainer for District Eight is a muscular, intimidating man, with an ever-present grimace on his face. He's strict; and is one of the few trainers here that have actually won a Games. He won his by punching each opponent in the face and immediately spearing them through the stomach. I heard the Capitol loves him so much that they let him help design some of the arenas. Allie said on his off time he serves as Head Peacekeeper for especially unruly districts.

"Thread, right?" Marvel said confidently as we strode up, offering his hand for Thread to shake.

Thread nodded sharply. _"Romulus _Thread, kid. Don't get it wrong." His voice was gruff and gravelly, like he had eaten a handful of nails before coming today. I wouldn't put it past him.

"I'm sick of you people going into a district and disabling something for your mission. That's the easy stuff. So for me you'll be doing an _actual _mission full of danger and action. You will be bombarded by attacks from the moment you walk in. Now give me your weapons."

"Excuse me?" I said rudely.

"I said, _give me your weapons._" Thread reached into my open jacket and yanked all of the knives out of their pockets, ripping huge holes in the fabric.

"You idiot!" I hissed. "This was my good carrying jacket! And how the hell are we supposed to survive a shitload of attacks without our weapons?"

"Don't sass me, girl," Thread growled, slapping me hard across my face.

He was strong, and the blow sent me staggering back, cradling my face. I immediately reached for a knife to defend myself with, but then remembered the bastard took them. I sighed and looked him in the eyes.

"So what is it you want us to do, tough guy?"

Thread scowled and gave us each a six inch long silver knife. "This will be the only thing you will take into the testing area with," he explained. "This will be just like a regular mission, where you have earpieces and microphones so we can speak. Now. Here's your mission. After you make it past all the deadly traps I have prepared for you, you will go into the big, black textile factory and go to the main processing room, where numerous children will be laboring. Set them free, and we'll come and get you. Got it?"

Marvel and I nodded. Thread opened the door.

"Oh," he said, taking something out of his pocket. "If either of you goofs around or says so much as a _word t_hat it irrelevant to this mission, I will _personally _hit this button and blow you right back here, failing you." Out of his pocket he pulled a small black box with a red button on top. His eyes burned into ours, challenging us to backtalk him or ask questions.

"Go." Thread shoved us through the door, and in we went.

_Glimmer_

"This mission will be a little different," Izzy explained. "You will, obviously, be dealing with forests and trees and things, but this test will be mostly based on fear. You will be going through what is, most simply, a haunted house."

Cato snorted then. "Yeah, right! You've got to be kidding me! A _haunted house? _Like that'll do anything to us! We're what _causes _the fear!"

Glad that I was going with someone so confident, I shut my eyes tightly. I know this was kind of an oxymoron, with me being in the Career pack during the Hunger Games and such, but I am the _biggest _scaredy cat in District One. My friends thought it was hilarious; hiding around the corner, making me jump, it was insanity. See, I was good in the Career pack because I expected killers coming at me from every angle. But haunted houses were a _nightmare. _There were so many twists and turns…I could never know who or what was coming, or when they were. I gripped the small knife inside my jacket hard. If we were going through a haunted house for Capitol training, I was sure we would see some action.

"No weapons," Izzy said suddenly.

"What?" I gasped. "_No weapons?" _

"If you come across anything that is a danger to you, you'll just have to fight it off with your body strength." Izzy said, shrugging.

"Piece of cake," Cato said, handing over his knives and spear. "I'm quite talented in that category, as well." He held up his arm and flexed his bicep. Izzy and I rolled our eyes and grinned.

"All you have to do is make it to the end of the tunnel," Izzy said, smiling. "Good luck."

We stepped into the door, with me staying extremely close to Cato's protective swagger.

_Marvel_

When we stepped into District Eight I thought it was raining. But then I realized it was just the amount of blood spraying on us. Our own blood. The pain of the whips hitting us was so great that I could barely feel it. But we had to get moving soon, or we could die of blood loss alone.

"Clove!" I choked, opening my mouth as small as possible to avoid getting blood in my mouth.

"Run!" she murmur-yelled.

We started sprinting through the rain of our blood, until suddenly the flurry of red stopped and so did we. We stood there for about five seconds before we both fell to our knees in agony.

"Holy s_hit!" _Clove wailed, tears running down her face. Huh. I'd never seen Clove cry before. It was quite an ordeal.

"Keep…going," she said between gasps.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked, squeezing my eyes shut to try to ignore my own pain.

"No. But we have to keep going, before the next attack begins. Here," she said, taking off her ripped jacket and handing it to me. "Wipe as much of the blood off as you can so it's not so sticky when we're running and we won't draw any more attention." I wiped myself, wincing a great many of times, and then handed the jacket to Clove, who did the same.

"Ready to go?" I asked, trying not to look at the bloody mess that was now my skin. I couldn't even see my flesh anymore; there was too much blood.

"We have to clean this. We'll get blood poisoning." I said, concerned.

"There's no time," Clove protested. "Dr. Samuel will fix us up when we get back. Right now we need to focus on finding that factory. "

And find it we did. Planted right in front of us was a huge black building made out of material that looked like granite, or something as shiny. But as soon as we went a step closer to the front doors, all of the security cameras on the walls pointed towards us and started shooting little red darts at us.

"Come on, Thread," I mumbled, receiving the first dart in my shoulder.

_Cato_

Glimmer and I walked into an inky black darkness with tall shapes on either side of us that I could only assume to be trees. Glimmer stuck to my side the whole time we walked, her arm brushing against mine every few seconds. We needed to get through this mission as quickly as possible, so we could finish up for the day and go eat.

I felt Glimmer shivering beside me, and I put an arm around her. Not in a romantic way, but more in one of a brother. I've begun to think of Glimmer as my baby sister, even though she's only a year younger than me.

"Come on, Glim," I said. "This is only _training._ You've been though worse- you were awake by yourself when you were keeping watch during the Games, right?"

"Yeah, and look how well that turned out," she answered, smiling up and me.

"Stop," I said suddenly. I turned around, where a hooded figure had been silently following us.

"Oh, God," Glimmer murmured anxiously.

"Follow me," I said out of the corner of my mouth. "When he goes down, grab his axe and then do what I say."

"Yes, teacher," Glimmer whispered with a smile.

We crept towards our follower, and I was surprised that he didn't run and attack us right away. He just stood there. Suddenly I launched myself at him and let my fist go first, it hitting him square in the face. He started to raise his axe, but I kicked him in the back of knees and he went down. Glimmer snatched the axe out of his loosened grip, and I grabbed his wrists with one hand and held them behind his back while I tilted his neck up with my other.

"Chop him,. Glimmer," I said calmly.

As the edge of the blade pierced his neck, I quickly moved my hand up to his hair, where I stretched his neck taught for a clean cut. And so it was. Glimmer's swing sent an even chop through the neck and completely severed his head.

"Nice," I said breathlessly, dropping the head on the ground. "Our new strategy is I go in for the takedown, you're the killer."

"Got it," Glimmer said. "Shall we continue on, Hunter?"

I smirked. "Whatever you say, Assassin."

_Clove_

One by one, our skin was penetrated by the sharp little points of the darts. This time, instead of intense pain like from the whips, the darts caused no more than a small itch, which intensified into an annoying itch…which led to an unbearable itch.

"Ahhh! Marvel! What the hell is this stuff?" I cried.

"I dunno!" Marvel yelled over his shoulder, sprinting for the door. "Don't worry about it now, there's nothing we can do about it, just start running over here!"

I followed him and ran to the front door, where of course, it was locked.

"Password," an electronic voice said from inside the door.

"Great," I mumbled.

"Voice key incorrect," the voice stated. "Voice key incorrect. Voice key incorrect. Voice key incorrect."

"We get it," I snarled at the door.

"Oh, move _over," _Marvel groaned. He looked straight at the door and stated clearly, "Hannubi."

"Voice key correct." The door swung open and we stepped inside.

"What the hell was that?" I murmured as we walked through the deserted hallway.

"I snuck into Thread's office while I was waiting to get my stiches."

"Wow. You do realize that Thread could have you, like, _executed _for that?"

He shrugged. "We're all going to die sometime, it might as well be now."

I rolled my eyes. "You're such a drama queen. Let's find a bathroom so we can watch this shit off our skin."

We rinsed the blood off our skin and made sure our knives were at the ready in case we had trouble getting to the main processing room. Which, knowing Thread, we probably would.

_Glimmer_

We were still walking between the long stretches of trees, trying not to trip over our own feet. I felt a little braver after that first kill. Kills always made me feel better; I don't know why.

"Do you see anything else?" I asked quietly.

"No," Cato whispered back. "Just that big building coming up; it's probably just a big barn for keeping lumber and stuff. We'll probably need to go through it to pass our test. Make sure you still got your axe."

I nodded, even though he couldn't see me. As we reached the rusted barn gates, we realized something was wrong with the ground. It was bumpy and slightly different shades of color by the fence. I poked it with the handle of my axe and gasped.

The bottom of the fence was lined with dead bodies.

I pursed my lips and looked questioningly at Cato, who shrugged and began stepping over them.

I walked over the carcasses, trying not to step on their faces too much. We got to the barn door and stopped. It was as dark as it was outside, and not to mention all the tools and tree-cutting machines sitting out in the open that the darkness hid from us.

"Give me the axe," Cato instructed me. "I'll use it as a blind stick to see what's in front of us. You keep a tight hold on my shirt and stay _right _behind me.'

I twisted my fingers into the thin fabric of his T-shirt and didn't say a word. For the next couple minutes there was nothing but the sound of the axe tapping across the floor when Cato suddenly shouted, "Get down!"

I immediately crouched and covered the back of my neck, just like they had taught us to do in elementary school in case there was ever a tornado. I felt Cato do the same next to me, and as soon as we crawled behind a heavy-looking green cutting machine of some sort, an orange light in the center of the barn lit up the whole room, followed by a massive _BOOM!_

Somehow our cover wasn't hurt by the explosion, and we crawled closer to it as fiery debris rained down from the ceiling, setting the wood floor and walls of the barn on fire.

Not wanting to waste any time, Cato and I hurriedly maneuvered our ways through the fires and made our way to the back door, not needing to use the axe as a blind stick because of the bright lights of the fire.

"Bomb?" I said hoarsely, from all the smoke in my throat. Cato nodded next to me.

We walked out of the barn, but neither of us was prepared for what waited for us at the end of the dirt lane.

Marvel and Clove, covered in blood and grime, were shaking violently, Clove almost on the ground. They both had guns.

Pointed at us.

"What the…" I said, squinting my eyes to see their faces more clearly. They were mutts. They had to be. But there's that little freckle to the right of Marvel's nose…how did they get that right? And the way Clove's mouth turned slightly up whenever her nose was wrinkled? How can those things be copied like that?

"Cato…" I said distractedly, tearing my face away to look at his strained face.

"Kill them," he said, his jaw tight.

"What? Are you kidding me? I don't think they're mutts, Cato"

"Kill. Them."

"Cato. They"

"God damn it, Glimmer, just _kill _them!" Cato grabbed the blade of what used to be a saw and chucked it at Marvel. It went through his chest, killing him instantly.

"_Cato!" _I cried, tears flooding my face. I snatched the axe out of his hands and swung it, letting it go. The tears were kind of blinding me, so instead of hitting Cato the blade cut right through Clove's shoulder.

"Clove!" I sobbed. "Oh, no, Clove!"

"Glimmer." Cato's strong arms grabbed my flailing ones and held them tight, crushing my wrists together. "Listen to me."

I thrashed and strained against him, my hair coming out of its bun and flying all over the place.

"_Glimmer. _Hey."

I stopped. "You kill my boyfriend, then you make me kill my _best friend_ and all you say is _hey?" _I bit his forearm and spit in his face.

"_Glimmer!_ They weren't your boyfriend and best friend, okay? They were mutts. They're testing us to see how we react when we lose part of our team. You need to calm down."

"Do _not t_ell me to calm down, you filthy no-good unreliable bastard!"

"Glimmer. Glimmer! HEY! Shut up and look."

I turned my head and saw the ball of light that was hovering behind Clove's and Marvel's bodies.

_Marvel_

"So, where to?" I asked Clove. "Where do you think this main processing room is?"

We heard a sound like the stacking of books further down the hall and Clove shrugged and inclined her head towards it. "I guess we could try there."

We follows the sound and ended up at a slightly ajar door. Clove pushed it open and stretching out in front of us on both ends were countless looms and dangerous-looking machines, all of which were run by children. Some were sticking their arms haphazardly into the whirring spikes to untangle thread, and some were underneath sharp blades, repairing things.

"So…all we have to do is release them?" Clove asked uncertainly.

"I guess," I said, nodding. "It should be pretty easy, there doesn't seem to be any guards or weapons around here…"

As soon as I spoke, every child whipped their heads around to glare at us. Every one of them grabbed hold of a part of their machine and ripped it off with inhumanly strength.

Row by row, they surged forward yielding their weapons like an army about to attack.

Each time they got in striking distance, Clove or I would swipe our knives in front of us and kill them. Some of the mutt children through their weapons at us, and we had to dodge them while killing others, and then having to deal with not falling to the defenseless children's self-defense. By the time the last row of kids surged forward, Clove and I were sweating and panting.

Instead of striding towards us with their weapons held high like the others, this group dropped their weapons and ran straight at us.

"We're going to lose," Clove murmured. "There's too many."

"No way," I said, jumping to the side where there was a machine with several metal rods attached to it. I tossed my knife to Clove and ripped two metal rods off the machine. Just to show off, I spun them around in my hands.

"I knock them out, you kill," I said to Clove, who nodded.

We thrived forward, with me in the front, knocking anyone to the ground who was in distance of the heavy spinning rods in my hands. I could hear Clove behind me, sticking the blades in the children's chests.

When there were only three kids left to kill, Clove and I ran forward, eager to end this. However, one kid had a sword, and he knocked one of my rods to the floor. One of the other two went to fight Clove, while the other kid flanked my opponent.

I battled the kid with the sword, receiving a few cuts here and there but also getting in a few hits myself. While I was preoccupied with him, his crony snuck up behind me and pulled the last rod out of my hands, leaving me defenseless. The two boys advanced towards me, backing me up to a machine with sharp, whirring blades.

_Clove_

I had just killed my opponent when I saw the other two kids push Marvel into a moving machine.

_Cato_

Once I finally got Glimmer to calm down, we walked towards the ball of light. I had to lift her over the mutts' bodies because she refused to walk on them. When we were next to the ball of light, Izzy's voice was all around us as she said, "Congratulations, Glimmer and Cato, you have completed your mission."

_Clove_

"_Marvel!" _I cried, watching the blades cut through his shoulder, spraying blood everywhere. Before they knew what was happening, I stabbed both of the boys in the back and went to Marvel. He was laying on the counter-like part of the machine, his half of his torso in the way of the blades.

I dragged him out and laid him on a part of the floor where there were no bodies. I carefully cut away his shirt, revealing his chiseled washboard abs. The whole top left corner of his chest was ripped up and bloodier than it had been from the whips, and his shoulder…oh, his shoulder.

Starting at the top of his arm and going to about an inch below his armpit, a jagged ribbon of red wound its way down Marvel's shoulder, leaving the edges of his skin hanging. I used to shirt to wrap around the wound, but I didn't know how much good it would do. I was just about to think about what to do next when Thread's voice growled in my ear, "You passed. We'll get your asses back here."

_Glimmer_

We had been back for only five minutes when Clove and Marvel popped up from a hole in the floor, which of course, covered itself back up under them.

"Oh, God, Marvel!" I sobbed, running towards him.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," Clove mumbled behind him.

I untied the shirt that was wrapped around Marvel's arm, and as I pulled the fabric, sticky with blood, off his shoulder, I gasped. Marvel's shoulder was laced with deep gashes. Also going up and down his and Clove's arms were little criss-crossing red lines of dried blood. I whirled around and demanded, "What the hell happened to you two?"

"Why don't you ask _him?"_ Clove said, inclining her head towards Thread. I immediately turned around to give the ass a piece of my mind, when Izzy put her hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry about this now," she said soothingly. "Marvel will be fine; Dr. Samuel will take care of him."

I raced back to Marvel, who was lying on a stretcher that Dr. Samuel and his assistants had brought in. Marvel's eyes were half open, and I couldn't tell if he was conscious yet or not.

"Marvel," I begged. "Say something!"

His eyes slowly opened the rest of the way, and attempting a cocky grin, he said, "That was fucked up."

**Okay, I was just thinking that the song 3 a.m. by Eminem is the perfect Cato song…talking about killing people and stuff…anyway, hope you liked the chapter! It was UnofficiallyClove's idea for the part of Marvel and Clove's mission in the factory. So….review? Vote on my poll!**


	23. The Final Test Pt 4: The Clone Kill

**Okay, I thought I was going to have them test in each of the districts, but I honestly can't think of any more missions for them to go on, so I'll just have them go on one big one all together, and then off to District Thirteen! **

**And the poll is now officially closed, and the trainer who will be going to District Thirteen is….Mia! Yeah, congratulations, whatever. On with the chapter.**

**This chapter is dedicated to citruszen. **

_Clove_

"Well, I don't need a mission to tell me how you work together with your remaining partner," Claire said, looking at the four of us. "I can watch the Games, or I can just go off of how you've been interacting with each other over the last few weeks. So you won't be going on any more missions."

"Finally," I said, turning towards the door. "I'm starving. See you later."

I didn't get far. Claire grabbed me by my shirt collar and dragged me back.

"You won't be going on any missions except for _one," _Claire added. ""It's great that you all know something about one district, but there's one district I need _all _of you to know about: Twelve. It will most likely where you'll be fighting, considering that's where Katniss and Peeta will be, and we need to be wherever they are for you to dispose of them."

"Wait," Cato said, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "We get to kill Twelve? This is _fantastic!" _

Claire shrugged. "Of course you do. What with this rebellion and everything, they have to be killed. And what better way for them to be killed than by the very people that almost killed them the first time?"

"Wait," Marvel said with a concerned look on his face. "Did you say _rebellion?" _

"Oh, yeah, I guess you guys don't know," Claire said.

"Don't know _what?" _

"Nobody ever told you how Katniss and Peeta won, did they?"

"Because of the rule change," Cato said. "If the last two tributes are from the same district, they're both allowed to win. Clove and I almost won because of it."

I scowled at the thought that Katniss and Peeta stole the glory from us. But, at least this way, we still get to kill them.

"You're wrong, Cato," Claire said. "Right after your cannon went off, the rule was changed right back to how it's been for seventy-four years: only one Victor is allowed. So Katniss and Peeta threatened to kill themselves by eating nightlock berries, so they were both allowed to win. Ever since then, the country's been in chaos. The Careers are siding with the Capitol, obviously, but the rest of Panem is rebelling left and right. And Katniss is annoying the hell out of me with her little birdy dress-up costumes."

"Oh, so is that what Katniss meant by being the districts' mockingjay or whatever? Their leader?" Marvel asked.

Claire nodded. "Yeah. It's stupid, and they need to die. Anyway, you need to kill them and learn your way around District Twelve. The Gamemakers cloned Katniss and Peeta, and they'll be at the end of the deepest mines in District Twelve. They'll fight just the same as the real Katniss and Peeta, so be alert. And be careful in the mines; they're just like the real ones. The air might be toxic. Go!"

"I want Katniss," I said immediately when we were in Twelve's training room.

"No way!" Cato cried. "I want her. I let you have her during the Games, so this time I get her."

"Oh, please, Cato," I said, rolling my eyes. "I was fabulous. Didn't everyone else think my show was hilarious?"

"Hilarious or not, apparently you couldn't handle it, because you almost died!" Marvel said.

"You just shut up, Sparkle Pants!" I shot up. "Who survived longer, you or me? Tell me again, I forgot," I shot back.

"If anyone gets to kill her, it's me," Glimmer interrupted. "You guys all killed someone during the Games; I never got a chance."

"Yeah, that's because you were too busy pansying around and falling asleep to worry about killing anyone." I spat.

"_God, _Clove!" Glimmer shouted. "Why are you so damn annoying?"

"_Why are you so damn annoying?" _I mimicked her. "Who's the one that's saved your ass on countless missions?"

"Uh, not you?" Glimmer said, like it should have been obvious.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. I still say I should kill Miss Mockingjay."

"How about you and Glimmer get her, and Cato and I kill Lover Boy?" Marvel said.

"Fine," Glimmer and I both said, frowns on our faces.

"Not fine!" Cato said. "Baker Boy won't be _nearly _as fun as killing Arrow Girl. How about _I _get Katniss, and the rest of you share Lover Boy!"

"No," therest of us said.

Cato sighed and rolled his eyes. "We'll see,"

Suddenly a loud explosion distracted us from our argument.

"That's got to be from the west mines," Marvel said, his brow furrowing. "We've got to get to the east ones."

"How do _you _know that?" Cato sneered.

Marvel sighed. "Claire said Katniss and Peeta were in the mines. Obviously they weren't in the west ones, because they just exploded."

"Well maybe Claire just exploded them to make our job easier," I said sarcastically.

Everyone ignored me and started towards the west mine entrance.

_Glimmer_

"Clove." I hung back so she could catch up. "How do you think we should kill her?"

"You torture, then I'll torture, then I'll kill her in a torturing way." Clove smirked.

"No way!" I said. "We'll stab her together."

"Fine," Clove said. "But only _after _we've tortured her. But not enough that she's begging for death. We don't want to give her anything."

I flashed a smile. "Fabu, Shamu."

"Are you calling me a whale?"

"Abso_lute_ly!"

"Glimmer, Clove, let's go!" Marvel called from the entrance of the mine. He and Cato were standing there, very impatiently, by the looks of their faces.

"How the hell are we supposed to kill District Twelve for real if you too can't get your prissy little asses down there to kill them for _practice?" _Cato said.

Clove hurried to catch up to them. "Hey, she's the prissy one, not me!" she said, pointing at me.

I snorted. "And who was obsessing over Gabby's braid?"

"I was not _obsessing, _you jackass. I said I _liked _her braid."

"Whatever. We'll see just who's prissy when I silence Katniss for good."

"You mean when _I _kill her," Clove said. "See, you are prissy. You won't say kill her. You said silence her."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm going to silence you if you talk one more time."

"Guys! Let's _go!" _Cato said, waving us towards them.

We walked up, and it looked like the only way down was to go in a shaky looking elevator that descended down pitch-black shaft. I shuddered.

Cato, Marvel, and I stepped into the elevator. Clove, however, stood her ground and looked uncertainly at the rusty elevator doors.

"Well?" I said, tapping my foot. "Are ya coming?"

"Well…" Clove looked at the doors again. "What if the doors close on me while I'm getting in?"

I snorted. "Please. That won't happen. Look. I'll keep them from hitting you." I held my arm in front of the doors.

Clove squeezed her eyes shut. "No, Glimmer, don't!" she cried. "The doors will shut and chop your arm off!"

I raised my eyebrows and looked at Cato. "Is she serious?" I mouthed.

He nodded yes.

"Clove, get your prissy ass in here!" Marvel cried, throwing up his hands.

Clove's eyes snapped open and she scowled. Her eyes flashed to the doors for a second, and she hopped quickly across the threshold.

I pulled my arm back as the doors began to close. The elevator cart went down, down, and then started to spin slowly.

"Oh no," I gasped, grabbing Marvel's arm. "Why is it spinning? Make it stop spinning!"

The nausea was staring to kick in as I grabbed Clove's shoulder with my other hand and tried to stay upright.

"Glimmer, this is how mine elevators work," Cato explained. "This is how they work in Two, too. It's just how the track's built."

I kicked the side of the elevator. "I…can't…"

"She looks green!" Clove said. "You better not barf on me."

"She gets really bad motion sickness," Marvel explained.

"I thought you were a roller coaster junkie," Clove said.

"She is," Marvel said. "Just not the spinny ones. She barfs every time."

The spinning got faster, and suddenly the elevator jolted to a stop. "Oh!" I cried, slamming against Marvel's shoulder. "Get me out, get me out…" I murmured as I shoved past everyone and flung myself out of the tiny car. The spinning in my head didn't stop and I vomited all over the floor. As soon as Cato stepped out and saw, he threw up, too.

"Dude, since when are you squeamish?" Marvel asked Cato, a weirded out look on his face.

"Ew, this happened once in school!" Clove cried, covering her eyes. "Some fat kid named Ted Ledbetter started puking in class and Cato just joined in! It was disgusting! But it was pretty funny when we called him Ted Bedwetter," she added with a smirk.

I chuckled. "Okay, I'm ready, let's go."

We started to go deeper into the dark tunnel, our way lit by periodically placed gas lamps that had a soft, musky glow. All around us, water dripped from the ceiling, occasionally landing on us.

"So where do you think they are?" Cato asked once we had been walking for a while.

"Claire said they would be at the end of this tunnel," said Clove.

"Yeah, but which way?" I asked as we came to a crossroad.

Clove shrugged. "Maybe we should split up?"

"Absolutely not," Cato said immediately. "We'll listen to see which is a dead end."

We all looked at him blankly. "Didn't you all take mine navigating as an elective in high school?"

Clove and Marvel shook their heads, whereas I cracked a smile at the thought of me even _considering _that.

"And how exactly do you listen?" I asked.

Cato reached to the ground and took a rock in each hand. "To tell which tunnel is longer, throw a rock into each one, and whichever has the longest echo is the longest tunnel!"

I rolled my eyes. "You sound like a teacher."

"Shut up, Glimmer," Cato threw a rock into the left tunnel, and the sound echoed for about five seconds. However, when he threw the second rock into the right tunnel, the echo lasted about eight seconds.

"So, they're down there?" Marvel asked, pointing to the right tunnel. Cato nodded and began walking down the pitch black tunnel.

_Clove_

"How much longer?" I whined, dragging my feet. We had been walking along this tunnel for what had seemed like an hour, and I was getting annoyed.

"Hey, Claire!" I said into my earpiece. "How much longer?"

"Patience, Clove," Claire's calm voice said in my ear. "Not much longer-"

"Hey, guys, what's this?" Cato interrupted.

"What?" I asked.

Cato put his hands out in front of him and felt around. "I think we got to a wall. But how did that happen? We didn't see District Twelve anywhere!"

"Great job, moron, you led us down the wrong tunnel," I said.

"Shut up, Clove," Cato growled.

"Both of you shut up!" Glimmer cried. "Let's just look around; I have a flashlight."

"You had a flashlight this whole time and you didn't use it?" I cried.

"Calm down! I wanted to save the battery, Gawd!"

Glimmer flipped on the flashlight and shined it on the wall. She immediately screamed and dropped it on the floor, where it went out.

In that one shine someone was illuminated.

Lover Boy.

The sound of a match being lit behind us caught our attention. We turned, Cato yielding his sword at our backs, and saw the small flame flickering off Fire Girl's face.

Well, their clones, anyway.

"Huh," I said, stepping forward. "Ironic, you're the Girl on Fire and you're lighting a match. Hilarious." I slid my knife from my belt.

Katniss's clone cocked her head and smirked. "I thought you would like that," she said,and blew the match out. Suddenly I felt a sharp sting graze my thigh.

"Ha!" I laughed. "You're nothing without your sight! _Nothing!" _

"Clove," Glimmer said, laughter in her voice. "It's not really her."

"Shut up and kill them!"

"But we can't see!" Glimmer protested.

"Well we're not going to stand here like a bunch of District Twelve tributes, are we? Everybody keep talking so we know who we're killing and who we're not!"

"Alright, Pita Bread," Cato growled. "Let's keep this fair, shall we? I win, you die." I could hear the smile in his voice.

All of a sudden I heard the thud of a body against the wall and then a quiet popping sound.

"Sloppy," Cato breathed. " Who taught you how to fight, Lover Boy?"

Another thud. "Seriously!" Cato laughed. "I don't remember it being t_his _easy in the Hunger Games!"

"I got it, Cato," Marvel said. "You're done, Pee-OW! What the hell?"

Another match was lit for a second; Katniss was smiling beside Peeta, a bloody knife in her hand. The light went out, and she asked a question in a garbled language. Peeta answered, his voice weak.

"WHAT THE HELL?" I screeched. "They're not supposed to speak a different language!"

"Expect the unexpected!" Claire sang in my ear. I scowled and ripped the earpiece out of my ear.

"Just slash randomly!" Marvel shouted.

I swung my knife blindly, hitting human flesh with every step I took. I knew I couldn't possibly be hitting Katniss or Peeta's clones every time, because I kept hearing cries of pain from Glimmer, Marvel, or Cato. I didn't let up though.

"Clove! A cannon will sound when they're dead!" Glimmer called to me from across the cave, her voice just the slight bit ragged.

"How do you know?" I cried back, hearing a grunt of pain, either from Marvel, Cato, or Peeta.

"Claire told us!"

"Cato! Marvel!" I yelled.

"Yeah!"

"What?"

Good. Neither of them were in front of me. I surged forward and stabbed with all my might. I felt the tip of my knife enter my opponent's body, then felt their chest as it went all the way through to my hand.

A cannon fired, and suddenly lights flooded the cave. Katniss's clone was lying dead at my feet, my knife still embedded in her heart.

Glimmer looked down at Peeta, who was still struggling slightly, and stabbed him through the heart as well, causing another cannon to fire. Marvel and Cato seemed to have been fighting each other without knowing it, but then had stepped back when they answered my call. All four of us were sporting injuries, but the guys had it the worst.

I had time to say, "Nice job," before Claire's voice filled the cave. "Fabulous. You passed."


End file.
